■AN. \ 

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ESSAYS 



PEIICIPLES OF MOEALITY, 



AND ON THE 



PRIVATE AND POLITICAL 



RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS OF MANKIND. 



BY JONATHAN DYMOND, 

AUTHOR OF "AN ENQUIRY INTO THE ACCORDANCY OF WAR WITH THE 
PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY," ETC. 



" As the Will of God is our rule ; to enquire what is our duty, or what we are 
obliged to do, in any instance, is, in effect, to enquire what is the Will of God in 
that instance 1 which consequently becomes the whole business of morality."— 
Pale v. 



NEW YORK: 
COLLINS, BROTHER & CO., 254 PEARL STREET. 



1844. 



H3=» If the Reader approves of these Essays will he 
.ease recommend them ? American Publishers. 



STEREOTYPED BY T. B. SMITH, 
216 WILLIAM STREET, NEW YORK. 



TO THAT 

SMALL BUT INCREASING NUMBER 

WHETHER IN THIS COUNTRY OR ELSEWHERE, 
WHO 

MAINTAIN IN PRINCIPLE, 
AND 

ILLUSTRATE BY THEIR PRACTICE, 

THE GREAT DUTY 

OF CONFORMING TO THE 

LAWS OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY, 

WITHOUT REGARD TO 

DANGERS OR PRESENT ADVANTAGES, 
THIS WORK 

IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. 



PREFACE. 



The Author of this Work died in the spring of 1828, leav- 
ing in manuscript the three Essays of which it consists. We 
learn from himself that the undertaking originated in a belief 
(in which he probably is far from being alone) that the exist- 
ing treatises on Moral Philosophy did not exhibit the princi- 
ples nor enforce the obligations of morality in all their per- 
fection and purity ; that a work was yet wanted which should 
present a true and authoritative standard of rectitude — one by 
an appeal to which the moral character of human actions 
might be rightly estimated. This he here endeavours to supply. 

Rejecting what he considered the false grounds of duty, 
and erroneous principles of action which are proposed in the 
most prominent and most generally received of our extant 
theories of moral obligation, he proceeds to erect a system of 
morality upon what he regards as the only true and legitimate 
basis — the Will of God. He makes, therefore, the authority 
of the Deity the sole ground of duty, and His communicated 
will the only ultimate standard of right and wrong ; and as- 
sumes, " that wheresoever this will is made known, human 
duty is determined ; and that neither the conclusions of phi- 
losophers, nor advantages, nor dangers, nor pleasures, nor suf- 
ferings, ought to have any opposing influence in regulating 
our conduct." 

The attempt to establish a system of such uncompromising 
morality, must necessarily bring the writer into direct collision 
with the advocates of the utilitarian scheme, particularly with 
J)i. Paley ; and accordingly it will be found that he frequently 
enters the lists with this great champion of Expediency. 
With what success — how well he exposes the fallacies of that 
specious but dangerous doctrine — how far he succeeds in re- 
futing the arguments by which it is sought to be maintained, 
and in establishing another system of obligations and duties 
and rights upon a more stable foundation, must be left to the 
reader to determine. 

In thus attempting to convert a system of Moral Philosophy, 
dubious, fluctuating, and inconsistent with itself, into a definite 
and harmonious code of Scripture Etfcics, the Author under- 

1* 



vi 



PREFACE. 



took a task for which, by the original structure of his mind and 
his prevailing habits of reflection, he was, perhaps, peculiarly 
fitted. He had sought for himself, and he endeavours to convey 
to others, clear perceptions of the true and the -right ; and in 
maintaining what he regarded as truth and rectitude, he shows 
every where an unshackled independence of mind, and a fear- 
less, unflinching spirit. The work will be found, moreover, 
if we mistake not, to be the result of a careful study of the 
writings of moralists, of much thought, of an intimate ac- 
quaintance with the genius of the Christian religion, and an 
extensive observation of human life in those spheres of action 
which are seldom apt to attract the notice of the meditative 
philosopher. 

In proceeding to illustrate his principles, the author has evi- 
dently sought, as far as might be, to simplify the subject, to 
disencumber it of abstruse and metaphysical appendages, and, 
rejecting subtleties and needless distinctions, to exhibit a 
standard of morals that should be plain, perspicuous and prac- 
ticable. 

Premising thus much, the work must be left to its own 
merits. It is the last labour of a man laudably desirous of 
benefiting his fellow men ; and it will fulfil the Author's wish, 
if its effect be to raise the general tone of morals, to give dis- 
tinctness to our perceptions of rectitude, and to add strength 
to our resolutions to virtue. 



The following Essays are now published in a cheap form, 
in order to disseminate more widely right views of the Chris- 
tian's moral obligation. The importance of having sound 
views of our moral, social, and political rights and duties can- 
not be too highly estimated ; and it is hoped, that the exten- 
sive diffusion of a work, so ably exposing the laxity of many 
dangerous popular notions and practices, and the sophistry by 
which these are upheld — particularly the evil and impolicy 
of War — may at this period, under the Divine blessing, prove 
of great utility. 

The present Edition contains the whole of the original one, 
published in England in two volumes octavo, at twenty-one 
shillings sterling ; and, for the more easy reference to any 
particular subject, a copious Index has been added. 



CONTENTS. 



ESSAY I. 
PART I. — PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY. 

PAGE 

CHAP. I. MORAL OBLIGATION, ]5 

Foundation of Moral Obligation. 
CHAP. II. STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG, . . . .16 

The Will of God— Notices of Theories— The communication of the Will 
of .God— The supreme authority of the expressed Will of God— Causes 
of its practical rejection — The principles of expediency fluctuating and 
inconsistent — Application of the principles of expediency — Difficulties- 
Liability to abuse — Pagans. 

The Will of God, . . . . . . . . . 'l6 

The communication op the Will of God, . . . . .19 

CHAP. III. SUBORDINATE STANDARDS OF RIGHT AND WRONG, . 31 
Foundation and limits of the authority of subordinate moral rules. 

CHAP. IV. COLLATERAL OBSERVATIONS, 32 

Identical authority of Moral and Religious Obligations, . . 32 
Identical authority of moral and religious obligations — The Divine attributes 
— Of deducing rules of human duty from a consideration of the attributes 
of God — Virtue : " Virtue is conformity with the standard of rectitude " — 
Motives of action. 

The Divine Attributes, . . . . . . .33 

Virtue, . . . . . ■'. . , . . 35 

CHAP. V. SCRIPTURE, 37 

The morality of the Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian dispensations — Their 
moral requisitions not always coincident — Supremacy of the Christian 
morality — Of variations in the Moral Law — Mode of applying the precepts 
of Scripture to questions of duty — No formal moral system in Scripture 
— Criticism of Biblical morality — Of particular precepts and general rules 
Matt. vii. 12. — 1 Cor. x. 31. — Rom. hi. S. — Benevolence, as it is proposed 
in the Christian Scriptures. 

The Morality of the Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian Dispen- 
sations, . . . . . . . . .37 

Mode of Applying the Precepts of Scripture to Questions of Duty, 42 

Benevolence, as it is Proposed in the Christian Scriptures, . 51 

CHAP. VI. THE IMMEDIATE COMMUNICATION OF THE WILL OF GOD, 54 

Conscience— Its nature — Its authority*-Review of opinions respecting a 
moral sense — Bishop Butler — Lord Bacon — Lord Shaftesbury — Watts — 
Voltaire — Locke — Southey — Adam Smith — Paley — Rousseau -Milton — 
Judge Hale — Marcus Antoninus — Epictetus — Seneca — Paul — That every 
human being possesses a moral law — Pagans — Gradations of light — Pro- 
phecy — The immediate communication of the Divine Will perpetual — 
Of national vices : Infanticide : Duelling— Of savage life. 

Section i. Conscience, its Nature and Authority, . . .55 

Review of Opinions Respecting a Moral Sense, . . .61 

The Immediate Communication of the Will op God, , . .70 



viii 



CONTENTS. 



ESSAY I. 

PART II. — SUBORDINATE MEANS OF DISCOVERING 
THE DIVINE WILL. 

PAGE 

CHAP. I. THE LAW OF THE LAND, 80 

Its authority— Limits to its authority— Morality sometimes prohibits what 
the law permits. 

CHAP. II. THE LAW OF NATURE, 85 

Its authority — Limits to its authority — Obligations resulting from the Rights 
of Nature — Incorrect ideas attached to the word Nature. 

CHAP. III. UTILITY, . . . . . . . . .91 

Obligations resulting from Expediency — Limits to these obligations. 
CHAP. IV. THE LAW OF NATIONS.— THE LAW OF HONOUR, . . 95 
Section I. The Law op Nations, . . . . . .95 

Obligations and authority of the Law of Nations— Its abuses, and the limits 
of its authority— Treaties. 

Section II. The Law of Honour, . . . . . .99 

Authority of the Law of Honour — Its character. 



ESSAY II. 

PRIVATE RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS. 

CHAP I. RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS, . ^ . . . . .103 

Factitious semblances of devotion — Religious conversation : Sabbatical in- 
stitutions — Non-sanctity of days— Of temporal employments : Travelling : 
Stage-coaches : 'f Sunday papers :" Amusements — Holydays — Ceremonial 
institutions and devotional formularies —Utility of forms — Forms of Prayer 



Extempore prayer—Scepticism — Motives to Scepticism. 

Sabbatical Institutions, . . . . . . .107 

Ceremonial Institutions and Devotional Formularies, . . 112 

CHAP. II. PROPERTY, .119 



Foundation of the Right to Property — Insolvency: Perpetual obligation to 
pay debts : Reform of public opinion : Examples of Integrity — Wills, Le- 
gatees, Heirs: Informal Wills : Intestates — Charitable Bequests — Minor's 
Debts — A Wife's Debts— Bills of Exchange— Shipments— Distraints — Un- 
just Defendants — Extortion — Slaves — Privateers — Confiscations — Public 
Money — Insurance — Improvements on Estates — Settlements — Houses of 
infamy — Literary property — Rewards. 

CHAP. III. INEQUALITY OF PROPERTY, . . . .144 

Accumulation of Wealth: its proper limits — Provision for Children : "Keep- 
ing up the Family." 

CHAP. IV. LITIGATION— ARBITRATION, 150 

Practice of early Christians— Evils of Litigation— Efficiency of Arbitration. 

CHAP. V. THE MORALITY OF LEGAL PRACTICE, . . .154 

Complexity of Law— Professional Untruths— Defences of Legal Practice- 
Effects of Legal Practice : Seduction: Theft: Peculation— Pleading— The 
Duties of the Profession — Effects of Legal Practice on the profession, 
and on the public. 



CONTENTS. 



Xi 



PAGE 

CHAP. X. ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE, 384 

Substitution of justice for law — Court of Chancery — Of fixed laws — Their 
inadequacy — They increase litigation — Delays — Expenses — Informalities 
— Precedents — Verdicts — Legal proof— Courts of Arbitration — An extend- 
ed system of arbitration — Arbitration in criminal trials— Constitution of 
courts of arbitration— Their effects — Some alterations suggested — Techni- 
calities — Useless laws. 

CHAP. XI. OF THE PROPER SUBJECTS OF PENAL ANIMADVERSION, 403 

Crimes regarded by the Civil and the Moral Law — Created offences — Seduc- 
tion — Duelling— insolvents — Criminal debtors — Gradations of guilt in In- 
solvency — Libels : mode of punishing — Effects of the laws respecting 
Libels— Effects of public censure — Libels on the Government — Advanta- 
ges of a free statement of the truth — Freedom of the Press. 

CHAP. XII. OF THE PROPER ENDS OF PUNISHMENT, . . .423 
The three Objects of Punishment :— Reformation of the Offender :— Exam- 
ple : — Restitution — Punishment may be increased as well as diminished. 

CHAP. XIII. PUNISHMENT OF DEATH, 428 

Of the three objects of punishment, the punishment of death regards but 
one — Reformation of minor offenders : Greater criminals neglected — 
Capital punishments not efficient as examples — Public executions — Paul 
— Grotius— Murder — The punishment of death irrevocable — Rousseau- 
Recapitulation. 

CHAP. XIV. RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS, 438 

The primitive church— The established church of Ireland— America— Ad- 
vantages and disadvantages of established churches — Alliance of a church 
with the sta f e — An established church perpetuates it own evils— Persecu- 
tion generally the growth of religious establishments — State religions in- 
jurious to the civil welfare of a people — Legal provision for Christian 
teachers — Voluntary payment — Advancement in the church — The appoint- 
ment of religious teachers. 

CHAP. XV THE RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS OF ENGLAND AND 

IRELAND, 463 

The English Church the offspring of the Reformation, the Church esfabUsh- 
inent, of Papacy — Alliance of Church and State — " The Priesthood averse 
from Reformation "—Noble Ecclesiastics —[Purchase of advowsons — 
Non-residence — Pluralities— Parliamentary Returns — The Clergy fear to 
prpach the truth — Moral Preaching — Recoil from Works of Philanthropy 
— Tithes — "The Church is in Danger" — The Church establishmetU is in 
danger— Monitory Suggestion. 

CHAP. XVI. OF LEGAL PROVISION FOR CHRISTIAN TEACHERS.— 
OF VOLUNTARY PAYMENT, AND OF UNPAID MINISTRY, . . 486 

Compulsory payment — America — Legal provision for one church unjust — 
— Payment of Tithes by dissenters — Tithes a "property of the church" — 
Voluntary payment — The system of remuneration— Qualifications of a 
minister of trie gospel — Unpaid ministry — Days of greater purity. 

CHAP. XVII. PATRIOTISM, . . . . . . .502 

Patriotism as it is viewed by Christianity — A. Patriotism which is opposed 
to general benignity — Patriotism not the soldier's motive. 

CHAP. XVIII. SLAVERY, 506 

Requisitions of Christianity professedly disregarded — Persian Law — The 
slave system a costly iniquity. 

CHAP. XIX. WAR, 511 

Causes op War, . . . . . . . . .513 

Want of enquiry : Indifference to human misery : National irritability : In- 
terest : Secret motives of Cabinets : Ideas of glory — Foundation of mili- 
tary glory. 

Coxseciuences op War, . . . . . . .521 

Destruction of human life : Taxation : Moral depravity : Familiarity with 
plunder : Implicit submission to superiors : Resignation of moral agency : 
Bondage and degradation— Loan of armies— Effects on the community. 



X 



CONTENTS. 



ESSAY III. 



POLITICAL RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS 

PAGE 

CHAP. I. PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL TRUTH, AND OF POLITICAL 
RECTITUDE, .294 

I. " Political Power is rightly exercised only when it is possessed by con- 
sent of the community" — Governors officers of the Public — Transfer of 
their rights by a whole people — The people hold the sovereign power — 
Right of Governors — A conciliating system. 

II. " Political Power is rightly exercised only when it subserves the wel- 
fare of the community "—Interference with other nations — Present expe- 
dients for present occasions — Proper business of Governments. 

IH. " Political Power is rightly exercised only when it subserves the wel- 
fare of the community by means which the Moral Law permits ' -' — The 
Moral Law alike binding on nations and individuals — Deviation from rec- 
titude impolitic — " The Holy Alliance " — Durable fame. 

I. "Political Power is rightly possessed only when it is pos- 
sessed by Consent of the community," ..... 295 

II. "Political Power is rightly exercised only when it subserves 
the Welfare of the community," ...... 301 

IH. " Political Power is rightly exercised only when it subserves 
the Welfare of the community by means which the Moral Law 

PERMITS," .......... 305 

CHAP. n. CIVIL LIBERTY, 310 

Loss of Liberty— War— Useless laws. 
CHAP. ni. POLITICAL LIBERTY, 312 

Political Liberty the right of a community — Public satisfaction. 
CHAP. IV. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY, 314 

Civil disabilities— Interference of the Magistrate— Pennsylvania— Toleration 
— America — Creeds — Religious Tests — " The Catholic Question." 

CHAP. V. CIVIL OBEDIENCE, . . . . . . .322 

Expediency of Obedience — Obligations to Obedience — Extent of the Duty 
— Resistance to the Civil Power — Obedience may be withdrawn — King 
James — America — Non-compliance — Interference of the Magistrate — 
Oaths of Allegiance. 

CHAP. VI. FORMS OF GOVERNMENT, . . . . 333 

Some general principles — Monarchy — Balance of interests and passions 
— Changes in a constitution — Popular government — The world in a state 
of improvement — Character of legislators. 

CHAP. VII. POLITICAL INFLUENCE— PARTY— MINISTERIAL UNION, 342 

Influence of the Crown — Effects of influence — Incongruity of public notions — 
Patronage — American States — Dependency on the mother country — Party 
— Ministerial Union — " A party man " — The council board and the senate 
— Resignation of offices. 

CHAP. Vin. BRITISH CONSTITUTION, 353 

Influence of the Crown — House of Lords — Candidates for a peerage — Sud- 
den creation of peers — The bench of Bishops — Proxies — House of Com- 
mons — The wishes of the people — Extension of the elective franchise — 
Universal suffrage — Frequent elections — Modes of election — Annual par- 
liaments — Qualification of voters and representatives — Of choosing the 
clergy — Duties of a representative — Systematic opposition — Placemen 
and pensioners — Posthumous fame. 

CHAP. IX. MORAL LEGISLATION, 375 

Duties of a Ruler — The two objects of moral legislation— Education of the 
People— Bible Society — Lotteries — Public-houses — Abrogation of bad laws 
—Primogeniture— Accumulation of property. 



CONTENTS. 



IX 



PAGB 

CHAP. VI. PROMISES. — LIES, . .. . . . . .169 

Promises.— Definition of a Promise— Parole— Extorted Promises— John 
Fletcher. 

Lies. — Milton's Definition — Lies in War: to Robbers: to Lunatics : to the 
Sick — Hyperbole — Irony — Complimentary Untruths — " Not at Home " — 
Legal Documents. 

CHAP. VII. OATHS, 179 

Their Moral Character— Their Efficacy as Securities of Vera-, 
city— Their Effects, . . . . . . . .179 

A Curse— Immorality of oaths— Oaths of the ancient Jews— Milton— Paley 
— The High Priest's adjuration— Early Christians— Inefficacy of oaths- 
Motives to veracity — Religious sanctions : Public opinion : — Legal penal- 
ties—oaths in Evidence : Parliamentary Evidence : Courts Martial— The 
United States— Effects of Oaths : Falsehood— General obligations. 

CHAP. VIII. THE MORAL CHARACTER, OBLIGATIONS, AND EFFECTS 
OF PARTICULAR OATHS, . . . . ' . . .195 

Subscription to Articles of Religion, . . . . .195 

Oath of Allegiance— Oath in Evidence— Perjury— Military oath— Oath against 
Bribery at Elections— Oath against simony — University oaths— Subscrip- 
tion to articles of religion — Meaning of the 39 articles literal — Refusal to 
subscribe. 

CHAP. IX. IMMORAL AGENCY, 206 

Publication and circulation of books — Seneca — Circulating Libraries — Pub- 
lic-houses — Prosecutions — Political affairs. 

CHAP. X. THE INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUALS UPON PUBLIC NOTIONS 

OF MORALITY, . . . ■ 213 

Public notions of morality— Errors of public opinion : their effects— Duel- 
ling— Scottish Bench— Glory— Military virtues— Military talent— Bravery 
— Courage — Patriotism not the soldier's motive — Military fame — Public 
opinion of unchastity : In women : In men— Power of character — Char- 
acter—Character in Legal men — Fame — Faults of Great men— The Press 
— Newspapers — History : Its defects : Its power. 

CHAP. XI. INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION, 239 

Ancient Classics — London University — The Classics in Boarding-schools — 
English Grammar — Science and Literature — Improved system of Educa- 
tion — Orthography : Writing : Reading : Geography : Natural History : 
Biography : Natural Philosophy : Political Science — Indications of a revo- 
lution in the system of Education — Female Education — The Society of 
Friends. 

CHAP. XII. MORAL EDUCATION, 254 

Union of Moral principle with the affections— Society— Morality of the An- 
cient Classics— The supply of motives to virtue — Conscience — Subjugation 
of the Will— Knowledge of our own Minds— Offices of public worship. 

CHAP. XIH. EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE, 265 

Advantages of extended Education— Infant Schools— Habits of enquiry. 

CHAP. XIV. AMUSEMENTS, 269 

The Stage— Religious Amusements— Masquerades— Field Sports— The Turf 
— Boxing — Wrestling — Opinions of Posterity — Popular amusements 
needless. 

CHAP. XV. DUELLING, 273 

Pitt and Tierney— Duelling the offspring of intellectual meanness, fear, and 
servility — " A fighting man" — Hindoo immolations — Wilberforce — Seneca. 

CHAP. XVI. SUICIDE, 280 

Unmanliness of Suicide— Forbidden in the New Testament— Its folly— Le- 
gislation respecting suicide— tl erdict of Felo de se. 

CHAP. XVII. RIGHTS OF SELF-DEFENCE, 235 

These rights not absolute— Their limits— Personal attack— Preservation of 
property— Much resistance lawful— Effects of forbearance— Sharpe— Bar- 
clay— Ellwood, 



xii 



CONTENTS. 



Lawfulness op War, 



page 
. 531 



Influence of habit— Of appealing to antiquity— The Christian Scriptures- 
Subjects of Christ's benediction— Matt, xxvii. 52. — The Apostles and 
Evangelists — The Centurion— Cornelius — Silence not a proof of approba- 
tion—Luke xxii. 36. — John the Baptist — Negative evidence — Prophecies 
of the Old Testament — The requisitions of Christianity of present obli- 
gation — Primitive Christians — Example and testimony of early Christians 
—Christian soldiers — Wars of the .Tews — Duties of individuals and nations 
Offensive and defensive war — Wars always aggressive — Paley — War 
wholly forbidden. 

Op the probable and practical Effects op adhering to the Moral 
Law in respect to War, ....... 558 

Quakers in America and Ireland— Colonization of Pennsylvania— Uncondi- 
tional reliance on Providence— Recapitulation— General Observations. 



CONCLUSION, 



566 



INTRODUCTORY NOTICES. 



Of the two causes of our deviations from Rectitude — want of 
Knowledge and want of Virtue — the latter is undoubtedly the 
more operative. Want of knowledge is, however, sometimes a 
cause ; nor can this be any subject of wonder when it is recol- 
lected in what manner many of our notions of right and wrong 
are acquired. From infancy, every one is placed in a sort of 
moral school, in which those with whom he associates, or of whom 
he hears, are the teachers. That the learner in such a school 
will often be taught amiss, is plain.— So that we want information 
respecting our duties. To supply this information is an object of 
Moral Philosophy, and is attempted in the present work. 

When it is considered by what excellences the existing trea- 
tises on Moral Philosophy are recommended, there can remain 
but one reasonable motive for adding yet another — the belief that 
these treatises have not exhibited the Principles and enforced the 
Obligations of Morality in all their perfection and purity. Per- 
haps the frank expression of this belief is not inconsistent with 
that deference which it becomes every man to feel when he ad- 
dresses the public ; because, not to have entertained such a be- 
lief, were to have possessed no reason for writing. The desire 
of supplying the deficiency, if deficiency there be ; of exhibiting 
a true and authoritative Standard of Rectitude, and of estimating 
the moral character of human aetions by an appeal to that Stand- 
ard, is the motive which has induced the composition of these 
Essays. 

In the First Essay the writer has attempted to investigate the 
Principles of Morality. In which term is here included, first, the 
Ultimate Standard of Right and Wrong ; and, secondly, those 
Subordinate Rules to which we are authorized to apply for the 
direction of our conduct in life. In these investigations he has 
been solicitous to avoid any approach to curious or metaphysical 
enquiry. He has endeavoured to act upon the advice given by 
Tindal, the Reformer, to his friend John Frith : " Pronounce not 
or define of hid secrets, or things that neither help nor hinder 
whether it be so or no ; but stick you stiffly and stubbornly in 
earnest and necessary things." 

In the Second Essay these Principles of Morality are applied 
in the determination of various questions of personal and relative 
duty. In making this application, it has been far from the writer's 

2 



XIV 



INTRODUCTORY NOTICES. 



desire to deliver a system of Morality. Of the unnumbered par- 
ticulars to which this Essay might have been extended, he has 
therefore made a selection ; and in making it. has chosen those 
subjects which appeared peculiarly to need the enquiry, either 
because the popular or philosophical opinions respecting them ap- 
peared to be unsound, or because they were commonly little ad- 
verted- to in the practice of life. Form has been sacrificed to 
utility. Many great duties have been passed over, since no one 
questions their obligation ; nor has the author so little consulted 
the pleasure of the reader as to expatiate upon duties simply be- 
cause they are great. The reader will also regard the subjects 
that have been chosen as selected, not only for the purpose of 
elucidating the subjects themselves, but as furnishing illustration 
of the General Principles — as the compiler of a book of mathe- 
matics proposes a variety of examples, not merely to discover the 
solution of the particular problem, but to familiarize the applica- 
tion of his general rule. 

Of the Third Essay, in which some of the great questions of 
Political rectitude have been examined, the subjects are in them- 
selves sufficiently important. The application of sound and pure 
Moral Principles to questions of Government, of Legislation, of 
the Administration of Justice, or of Religious Establishments, is 
manifestly of great interest ; and the interest is so much the 
greater, because these subjects have usually been examined, as 
the writer conceives, by other and very different standards. 

The reader will probably find, in each of these Essays, some 
principles or some conclusions respecting human duties to which 
he has not been accustomed — some opinions called in question 
which he has habitually regarded as being indisputably true, and 
some actions exhibited as forbidden by morality which he has 
supposed to be lawful and right. In such cases I must hope for 
his candid investigation of the truth, and that he will not reject 
conclusions but by the detection of inaccuracy in the reasonings 
from which they are deduced. I hope he will not find himself 
invited to alter his opinions or his conduct without being shown 
why ; and if he is conclusively shown this, that he will not reject 
truth because it is new or unwelcome. 

With respect to the present influence of the Principles which 
these Essays illustrate, the author will feel no disappointment if 
it is not great. It is not upon the expectation of such influence 
that his motive is founded or his hope rests. His motive is, to 
advocate truth without reference to its popularity ; and his hope 
is, to promote by these feeble exertions, an approximation to that 
state of purity, which he believes it is the design of God shall 
eventually beautify and dignify the condition of mankind. 



ESSAY In 

PART I. 

PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY. 



CHAPTER I 

MORAL OBLIGATION. 
Foundation of Moral Obligation. 

There is little hope of proposing a definition of Moral 
Obligation which shall be satisfactory to every reader ; partly 
because the phrase is the representative of different notions 
in individual minds. No single definition can, it is evident, 
represent various notions ; and there are probably no means 
by which the notions of individuals respecting Moral Obliga- 
tion can be adjusted to one standard. Accordingly, whilst 
attempts to define it have been very numerous, all probably 
have been unsatisfactory to the majority of mankind. 

Happily this question, like many others upon which the 
world is unable to agree, is of little practical importance. 
Many who dispute about the definition, coincide in their judg- 
ments of what we are obliged to do and to forbear ; and so 
long as the individual knows that he is actually the subject 
of Moral Obligation, and actually responsible to a superior 
power, it is not of much consequence whether he can criti- 
cally explain in what Moral Obligation consists. 

The writer of these pages, therefore, makes no attempts at 
strictness of definition. It is sufficient for his purpose that 
man is under an obligation to obey his Creator ; and if any 
one curiously asks " Why ?" — he answers, that one reason at 
least is, that the Deity possesses the power, and evinces the 
intention, to call the human species to account for their ac- 
tions, and to punish or reward them. 

There may be, and I believe there are, higher grounds 
upon which a sense of Moral Obligation may be founded ; 



16 



STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG. [ESSAY I, 



such as the love of goodness for its own sake, or love and 
gratitude to God for his beneficence : nor is it unreasonable 
to suppose that such grounds of obligation are especially ap- 
proved by the universal Parent of mankind. 



CHAPTER II. 

STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG. 

The Will of God — Notices of Theories — The communication of the Will 
of God — The supreme authority of the expressed Will of God — Causes 
of its practical rejection— The principles of expediency fluctuating 
and inconsistent — Application of the principles of expediency — Diffi- 
culties — Liability to abuse — Pagans. 

It is obvious that to him who seeks the knowledge of his 
duty, the first enquiry is, What is the Rule of Duty 1 What 
is the Standard of Right and Wrong 1 Most men, or most of 
those with whom we are concerned, agree that this Standard 
consists in the Will of God. But here the coincidence of 
opinion stops. Various and very dissimilar answers are given 
to the question, How is the Will of God to be discovered ? 
These differences lead to differing conclusions respecting hu- 
man duty. All the proposed modes of discovering his Will 
cannot be the best nor the right ; and those which are not 
right are likely to lead to erroneous conclusions respecting 
what his Will is. 

It becomes therefore a question of very great interest — 
How is the Will of God to be discovered ? and if there should 
appear to be more sources than one from which it may be de- 
duced — What is that source which, in our investigations, we 
are to regard as paramount to every other I 

THE WILL OF GOD. 

When we say that most men agree in referring to the Will 
of God as the Standard of Rectitude, we do not mean that all 
those who have framed systems of moral philosophy have set 
out with this proposition as their fundamental rule ; but we 
mean that the majority of mankind do really believe (with 
whatever indistinctness) that they ought to obey the Will of 
God ; and that, as it respects the systems of philosophical 



\ 



CIIAP. II.] STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG. 17 

men, they will commonly be found to involve, directly or in- 
directly, the same belief. He who says that the " Under- 
standing"* is to be our moral guide, is not far from saying 
that we are to be guided by the Divine Will ; because the 
understanding, however we define it, is the offspring, of the 
Divine counsels and power. When Adam Smith resolves 
moral obligation into propriety arising from feelings of " Sym- 
pathy,"! tn e conclusion is not very different ; for these feelings 
are manifestly the residt of that constitution which God gave 
to man. When Bishop Butler says that we ought to live ac- 
cording to nature, and make conscience the judge whether we 
do so live or not, a kindred observation arises ; for the exist- 
ence and nature of conscience must be referred ultimately to 
the Divine Will. Dr. Samuel Clarke's philosophy is, that 
moral obligation is to be referred to the eternal and necessary 
differences of things. This might appear less obviously to 
have respect to the Divine Will, yet Dr. Clarke himself sub- 
sequently says, that the duties which these eternal differences 
of things impose, " are also the express and unalterable will, 
command, and law of God to his creatures, which he cannot 
but expect should be observed by them in obedience to his 
supreme authority."^ Very similar is the practical doctrine 
of Wollaston. His theory is, that moral good and evil con- 
sist in a conformity or disagreement with truth — " in treating 
every thing as being what it is." But then he says, that to 
act by this rule f? must be agreeable to the Will of God, and 
if so, the contrary must be disagreeable to it, and, since there 
must be perfect rectitude in his will, certainly icrong."^ It is 
the same with Dr. Paley in his far-famed doctrine of Expe- 
diency. " It is the utility of any action alone which consti- 
tutes the obligation of it ;" but this very obligation is deduced 
from the Divine Benevolence ; from which it is attempted to 
show, that a regard to utility is enforced by the Will of God. 
Nay, he says expressly, " Every duty is a duty towards God, 
since it is his will which makes it a duty.' ? |j 

Now there is much value in these testimonies, direct or in- 
direct, to the truth — that the Will of God is the Standard of 
Right and Wrong. The indirect testimonies are perhaps the 
more valuable of the two. He who gives undesigned evi- 
dence in favour of a proposition, is less liable to suspicion in 
his motives. 

* Dr. Price : Review of Principal Questions in Morals. 

t Theory of Moral Sentiments. 

t Evidence of Natural and Revealed Religion. 

§ Religion of Nature Delineated. || Moral and Political Philosophy. 
2* 



18 



STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG. [ESSAY I. 



But, whilst we regard these testimonies, and such as these, 
as containing satisfactory evidence that the Will of God is 
our Moral Law, the intelligent enquirer will perceive that 
many of the proposed Theories are likely to lead to uncertain 
and unsatisfactory conclusions respecting what that Will re- 
quires. They prove that His Will is the Standard, but they 
do not clearly inform us how we shall bring our actions into 
juxtaposition with it. 

One proposes the Understanding as the means ; but every 
observer perceives that the understandings of men are often 
contradictory in their decisions. Indeed many of those who 
now think their understandings dictate the rectitude of a given 
action, will find that the understandings of the intelligent 
pagans of antiquity came to very different conclusions. 

A second proposes Sympathy, regulated indeed and re- 
strained, but still Sympathy. However ingenious a philoso- 
phical system may be, I believe that good men find, in the 
practice of life, that these emotions are frequently unsafe, and 
sometimes erroneous guides of their conduct. Besides, the 
emotions are to be regulated and restrained ; which of itself 
intimates the necessity of a regulating and restraining, that 
is, of a superior power. 

To say we should act according to the " eternal and neces- 
sary differences of things," is to advance a proposition which 
nine persons out of ten do not understand, and of course can- 
not adopt in practice ; and of those who do understand it, per- 
haps an equal majority cannot apply it, with even tolerable 
facility, to the concerns of life. Why indeed should a writer 
propose these eternal differences, if he acknowledges that the 
rules of conduct which result from them are " the express will 
and command of God ?" 

To the system of a fourth, which says that virtue consists 
in a " conformity of our actions with truth," the objection pre- 
sents itself — what is truth ? or how, in the complicated affairs 
of life, and in the moment perhaps of sudden temptation, shall 
the individual discover what truth is 1 

Similar difficulties arise in applying the doctrine of Utility 
in " adjusting our actions so as to promote, in the greatest de- 
gree, the happiness of mankind." It is obviously difficult to 
apply this doctrine in practice. The welfare of mankind de- 
pends upon circumstances which, if it were possible, it is not 
easy to foresee. Indeed in many of those conjunctures in 
which important decisions must instantly be made, the com- 
putation of tendencies to general happiness is wholly im- 
practicable. 



CHAP. II.] STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG. 



19 



Besides these objections which apply to the systems sepa- 
rately, there is one which applies to them all — That they do 
not refer us directly to the Will of God. They interpose a 
medium ; and it is the inevitable tendency of all such me- 
diums to render the truth uncertain. They depend not in- 
deed upon hearsay evidence, but upon something of which 
the tendency is the same. They seek the Will of God not 
from positive evidence but by implication ; and we repeat the 
truth, that every medium that is interposed between the Di- 
vine Will and our estimates of it, diminishes the probability 
that we shall estimate it rightly. 

These are considerations which, antecedently to all others, 
would prompt us to seek the Will of God directly and imme- 
diately ; and it is evident that this direct and immediate 
knowledge of the Divine Will, can in no other manner be 
possessed than by his own Communication of it. 

THE COMMUNICATION OF THE WILL OF GOD. 

That a direct communication of the Will of the Deity re- 
specting the conduct which mankind shall pursue, must be 
very useful to them, can need little proof. It is sufficiently 
obvious that they who have had no access to the written re- 
velations, have commonly entertained very imperfect views 
of right and wrong. What Dr. Johnson says of the ancient 
epic poets, will apply generally to pagan philosophers : They 
" were very unskilful teachers of virtue," because " they wanted 
the light of revelation." Yet these men were inquisitive and 
acute, and it may be supposed they would have discovered 
moral truth if sagacity and inquisitiveness had been sufficient 
for the task. But it is unquestionable, that there are many 
ploughmen in this country, who possess more accurate know- 
ledge of morality than all the sages of antiquity. We do not 
indeed sufficiently consider for how much knowledge respect- 
ing the Divine Will we are indebted to his own Communica- 
tion of it. " Many arguments, many truths, both moral and 
religious, which appear to us the products of our understand- 
ings and the fruits of ratiocination, are in reality* nothing more 
than emanations from Scripture ; rays of the Gospel imper- 
ceptibly transmitted, and as it were conveyed to our minds in 
a side light."* Of Lord Herbert's book, De Veritate, which 
was designed to disprove the validity of Revelation, it is ob- 
served by the editor of his " Life," that it is " a book so 
strongly embued with the light of revelation relative to the 

* Balguy : Tracts Moral and Theological : — Second Letter to a Deist. 



20 



STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG. [ESSAY I. 



moral virtues and a future life, that no man ignorant of the 
Scriptures or of the knowledge derived from them, could have 
written it."* A modern system of moral philosophy is founded 
upon the duty of doing good to man, because it appears, from 
the benevolence of God himself, that such is his Will. Did 
those philosophers then, who had no access to the written 
expression of »his will, discover with any distinctness this 
seemingly obvious benevolence of God ? No. " The heathens 
failed of drawing that deduction relating to morality, to which, 
as we should now judge, the most obvious parts of natural 
knowledge, and such as certainly obtained among them, were 
sufficient to lead them, namely, the goodness of God."f — We 
are, I say, much more indebted to revelation for moral light, 
than we commonly acknowledge or indeed commonly perceive. 

But if in fact we obtain from the communication of the Will 
of God, knowledge of wider extent and of a higher order than 
was otherwise attainable, is it not an argument that that com- 
municated Will should be our supreme law, and that, if any 
of the inferior means of acquiring moral knowledge lead to 
conclusions in opposition to that Will, they ought to give way 
to its higher authority ? 

Indeed the single circumstance that an Omniscient Being, 
and who also is the Judge of mankind, has expressed his 
Will respecting their conduct, appears a sufficient evidence 
that they should regard that expression as their paramount 
rule. They cannot elsewhere refer to so high an authority. 
If the expression of his Will is not the ultimate standard of 
right and wrong, it can only be on the supposition that his 
Will itself is not the ultimate standard ; for no other means 
of ascertaining that Will can be equally perfect and authori- 
tative. 

Another consideration is this, that if we examine those sa- 
cred volumes in which the written expression of the Divine 
Will is contained, we find that they habitually proceed upon 
the supposition that the Will of God being expressed, is for 
that reason our final law. They do not set about formal proofs 
that we ought to sacrifice inferior rules to it, but conclude, as 
of course, that if the Will of God is made known, human duty 
is ascertained. " It is not to be imagined that the Scriptures 
would refer to any other foundation of virtue than the true 
one, and certain it is that the foundation to which they con- 
stantly do refer is the Will of God."\ Nor is this all : they 
refer to the expression of the Will of God. We hear nothing 

* 4th Ed., p. 336. t Pearson: Remarks on the Theory of Morals. 
\ Pearson: Theory of Mor. c. 1. 



CHAP. II.] STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG. 



21 



of any other ultimate authority — nothing of " Sympathy" — 
nothing of the " eternal fitness of things" — nothing of the " pro- 
duction of the greatest sum of enjoyment ;" — but we hear, re- 
peatedly, constantly, of the Will of God ; of the voice of God ; 
of the commands of God. To be obedient unto his voice"* is 
the condition of favour. To hear the " sayings of Christ and 
do them,"f is the means of obtaining his approbation. To 
" fear God and keep his commandments, is the whole duty of 
man. "J Even superior intelligences are described as " do- 
ing his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word."§ 
In short, the whole system of moral legislation, as it is exhi- 
bited in Scripture, is a system founded upon authority. The 
propriety, the utility of the requisitions are not made of im- 
portance. That which is made of importance is, the authority 
of the Being who legislates. " Thus saith the Lord," is re- 
garded as constituting a sufficient and a final law. So also it 
is with the moral instructions of Christ. " He put the truth 
of what he taught upon authority. "|| In the sermon on the 
mount, I say unto you, is proposed as the sole, and sufficient, 
arid ultimate ground of obligation. He does not say, " My 
precepts will promote human happiness, therefore you are to 
obey them:" but he says, " They are my precepts, therefore 
you are to obey them." So habitually is this principle borne 
in mind, if we may so speak, by those who were commis- 
sioned to communicate the Divine Will, that the reason of a 
precept is not often assigned. The assumption evidently was, 
that the Divine Will was all that it was necessary for us to 
know. This is not the mode of enforcing duties which one 
man usually adopts in addressing another. He discusses the 
reasonableness of his advices and the advantages of following 
them, as well as, perhaps, the authority from which he de- 
rives them. The difference that exists between such a mode 
and that which is actually adopted in Scripture, is analogous 
to that which exists between the mode in which a parent 
communicates his instructions to a young child, and that which 
is employed by a tutor to an intelligent youth. The tutor re- 
commends his instructions by their reasonableness and pro- 
priety : the father founds his upon his own authority. Not 
that the father's instructions are not also founded in propriety, 
but that this, in respect of young children, is not the ground 
upon which he expects their obedience. It is not the ground 
upon which God expects the obedience of man. We can, 
undoubtedly, in general perceive the wisdom of his laws, and 

* Deut. iv. 30. t Malt. vii. 24 t Eccl. xii. 13. 

$ Ps. ciii. 20. || Paley : Evid. of Chris, p. 2, c. 2. 



22 



STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG. [ESSAY I. 



it is doubtless right to seek out that wisdom ; but whether we 
discover it or not, does not lessen their authority nor alter our 
duties. 

In deference to these reasonings, then, we conclude, that 
the communicated Will of God is the Final Standard of Right 
and Wrong — that wheresoever this will is made known, hu- 
man duty is determined — and that neither the conclusions of 
philosophers, nor advantages, nor dangers, nor pleasures, nor 
sufferings, ought to have any opposing influence in regulating 
our conduct. Let it be remembered that in morals there can 
be no equilibrium of authority. If the expressed will of the 
Deity is not our supreme rule, some other is superior. This 
fatal consequence is inseparable from the adoption of any 
other ultimate rule of conduct. The Divine law becomes the 
decision of a certain tribunal — the adopted rule, the decision 
of a superior tribunal — for that must needs be the superior 
which can reverse the decisions of the other. It is a consi- 
deration, too, which may reasonably alarm the enquirer, that 
if once we assume the power of dispensing with the divine 
law, there is no limit to its exercise. If we may supersede 
one precept of the Deity upon one occasion, we may super- 
sede every precept upon all occasions. Man becomes the 
greater authority, and God the less. 

If a proposition is proved to be true, no contrary reasonings 
can show it to be false ; and yet it is necessary to refer to 
such reasonings, not indeed for the sake of the truth, but for 
the sake of those whose conduct it should regulate. Their 
confidence in truth may be increased if they discover that the 
reasonings which assail it are fallacious. To a considerate 
man it will be no subject of wonder that the supremacy of 
the expressed Will of God is often not recognized in the 
writings of moralists or in the practice of life. The specula- 
tive enquirer finds, that of some of the questions which come 
before him, Scripture furnishes no solution, and he seeks for 
some principle by which all may be solved. This indeed is 
the ordinary course of those who erect systems, whether in 
morals or in physics. The moralist acknowledges, perhaps, 
the authority of revelation ; but in his investigations he passes 
away from the precepts of revelation to some of those subor- 
dinate means by which human duties may be discovered — 
means which, however authorized by the Deity as subser- 
vient to his great purpose of human instruction, are wholly 
unauthorized as ultimate standards of right and wrong. Hav- 
ing fixed his attention upon these subsidiary means, he prac- 
tically loses sight of the Divine law which he acknowledges ; 



CHAP. II.] STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG. 



23 



and thus without any formal, perhaps without any conscious, 
rejection of the expressed Will of God, he really makes it 
subordinate to inferior rules. Another influential motive to 
pass by the Divine precepts, operates both upon writers and 
upon the public : — the rein which they hold upon the desires 
and passions of mankind, is more tight than they are willing 
to hear. Respecting some of these precepts we feel as the 
rich man of old felt : we hear the injunction and go away, if 
not with sorrow yet without obedience. Here again is an 
obvious motive to the writer to endeavour to substitute some 
less rigid rule of conduct, and an obvious motive to the reader 
to acquiesce in it as true without a very rigid scrutiny into its 
foundation. To adhere with fidelity to the expressed Will 
of Heaven, requires greater confidence in God than most men 
are willing to repose, or than most moralists are willing to 
recommend. 

But whatever have been the causes, the fact is indisputa- 
ble, that few or none of the systems of morality which have 
been offered to the world, have uniformly and consistently 
applied the conununicated Will of God in determination of 
those questions to which it is applicable. Some insist upon 
its supreme authority in general terms ; others apply it in de- 
termining some questions of rectitude : but where is the work 
that applies it always 1 Where is the moralist who holds 
every tiling, Ease, Interest, Reputation, Expediency, " Ho- 
nour," — personal and national, — in subordination to this Moral 
Law 1 

One source of ambiguity and of error in moral philosophy, 
has consisted in the indeterminate use of the term, " the Will 
of God." It is used without reference to the mode by which 
that will is to be discovered — and it is in this mode that the 
essence of the controversy lies. We are agreed that the Will 
of God is to be our rule : the question at issue is, What mode 
of discovering it should be primarily adopted? Now the 
term, the " Will of God," has been applied, interchangeably, 
to the precepts of Scripture, and to the deductions which have 
been made from other principles. The consequence has been 
that the imposing sanction, " the Will of God," has been ap- 
plied to propositions of very different authority. 

To inquire into the validity of all those principles which 
have been proposed as the standard of rectitude, would be 
foreign to the purpose of this essay. That principle which 
appears to be most recommended by its own excellence and 
beauty, and which obtains the greatest share of approbation 
in the world, is the principle of directing " every action so as 



24 



STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG. [ESSAY !. 



to produce the greatest happiness and the least misery in our 
power." The particular forms of denning the doctrine are 
various, but they may be conveniently included in the one ge- 
neral term — Expediency. 

We say that the apparent beauty and excellence of this rule 
of action are so captivating, its actual acceptance in the world 
is so great, and the reasonings by which it is supported are 
so acute, that if it can be shown that this rule is not the ulti- 
mate standard of right and wrong, we may safely conclude 
that none other which philosophy has proposed can make pre- 
tensions to such authority. The truth indeed is, that the ob- 
jections to the doctrine of expediency will generally be found 
to apply to every doctrine which lays claim to moral supremacy 
— which application the reader is requested to make for him- 
self as he passes along. 

Respecting the principle of Expediency — the doctrine that 
we should, in every action, endeavour to produce the greatest 
sum of human happiness — let it always be remembered that 
the only question is, whether it ought to be the paramount 
rule of human conduct. No one doubts whether it ought to 
influence us, or whether it is of great importance in estima- 
ting the duties of morality. The sole question is this : — 
When an expression of the Will of God, and our calculations 
respecting human happiness, lead to different conclusions re- 
specting the rectitude of an action — whether of the two shall 
we prefer and obey ? 

We are concerned only with Christian writers. Now, 
when we come to analyze the principles of the Christian ad- 
vocates of Expediency, we find precisely the result which 
we should expect — a perpetual vacillation between two irre- 
concilable doctrines. As Christians, they necessarily acknow- 
ledge the authority, and, in words at least, the supreme autho- 
rity of the Divine Law : as advocates of the universal appli- 
cation of the law of Expediency, they necessarily sometimes 
set aside the Divine Law, because they sometimes cannot de- 
duce, from both laws, the same rule of action. Thus there is 
induced a continual fluctuation and uncertainty both in prin- 
ciples and in practical rules : a continual endeavour to " serve 
two masters." 

Of these fluctuations an example is given in the article, 
" Moral Philosophy," in Rees's Encyclopaedia — an article in 
which the principles of Hartley are in a considerable degree 
adopted. " The Scripture precepts," says the writer, " are 
in themselves the rule of life." — " The supposed tendency of 
actions can never be put against the law of God as delivered 



CHAP. II.] STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG. 



25 



to us by revelation, and should not therefore be made our 
chief guide." This is very explicit. Yet the same article 
says, that the first great rule is, that " we should aim to direct 
every action so as to produce the greatest happiness and the 
least misery in our power." This rule, however, is some- 
what difficult of application, and therefore " instead of this 
most general rule we must substitute others, less general, and 
subordinate to it :" of which subordinate rules, to " obey the 
Scripture precepts" is one ! — I do not venture to presume that 
these writers do really mean what their words appear to mean 
— that the law of God is supreme and yet that it is subordi- 
nate ; but one thing is perfectly clear, that either they make 
the vain attempt " to serve two masters," or that they employ 
language very laxly and very dangerously. 

The high language of Dr. Paley respecting Expediency as 
a paramount law, is well known : — " Whatever is expedient 
is right."* — " The obligation of every law depends upon its 
ultimate utility."! — " It is the utility of any moral rule alone 
which constitutes the obligation of it. "J Perjury, Robbery, 
and Murder, " are not useful, and for that reason, and that 
reason only, are not right. It is obvious that this language 
affirms that utility is a higher authority than the expressed 
Will of God. If the utility of a moral rule alone constitutes 
the obligation of it, then is its obligation not constituted by 
the divine command. If murder is wrong only because it is 
not useful, it is not wrong because God has said, " Thou shalt 
not kill." 

But Paley was a Christian, and therefore could neither 
formally displace the Scripture precepts from their station of 
supremacy, nor avoid formally acknowledging that they were 
supreme. Accordingly he says, " There are two methods of 
coming at the Will of God on any point : First — By his ex- 
press declarations, when they are to be had, and which must 
be sought for in Scripture. "|| Secondly — by Expediency. And 
again, When Scripture precepts " are clear and positive, there 
is an end to all further deliberation.""^ This makes the ex- 
pressed Will of God the final standard of right and wrong. 
And here is the vacillation, the attempt to serve two masters 
of which we speak : for this elevation of the express decla- 
ration of God to the supremacy, is also absolutely incompati- 
ble with the doctrines that are quoted in the preceding 
paragraph. 

These incongruities of principle are sometimes brought into 

* Mor. and Pol. Phil. B. 2, c. 6. t B. 6, c. 12. t B. 2, c. 6. 
§ B. 2, c. 6. || B. 2, c. 4. % B. 2, c. 4 : Note. 

3 



26 



STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG. [ESSAY I. 



operation in framing practical rules. In the chapter on Sui- 
cide it is shown that Scripture disallows the act. Here then 
we might conclude that there was " an end to all further de- 
liberation ;" and yet, in the same chapter, we are told that 
suicide would nevertheless be justifiable if it were expedient. 
Respecting Civil Obedience he says, the Scriptures " incul- 
cate the duty" and " enforce the obligation ;" but notwithstand- 
ing this, he pronounces that the " only ground of the subjects' 
obligation" consists in Expediency * If it consists only in 
expediency, the divine law upon the subject is a dead letter. 
In one chapter he says that murder would be right if it was 
useful ;f in another, that " one word" of prohibition " from 
Christ is final ."J The words of Christ cannot be final, if we 
are afterwards to enquire whether murder is " useful" or not. 
One other illustration will suffice. In laying down the rights 
of the magistrate, as to making laws respecting religion, he 
makes Utility the ultimate standard ; so that whatever the 
magistrate thinks it useful to ordain, that he has a right to 
ordain. But in stating the subjects' duties as to obeying laws 
respecting religion, he makes the commands of God the ulti- 
mate standard.^ The consequence is inevitable, that it is 
right for the magistrate to command an act, and right for the 
subject to refuse to obey it. In a sound system of morality 
such contradictions would be impossible. There is a contra- 
diction even in terms. In one place he says, " Wherever 
there is a right in one person there is a corresponding obliga- 
tion upon others. "|| In another place, " The right of the ma- 
gistrate to ordain and the obligation of the subject to obey, in 
matters of religion, may be very different ."If 

Perhaps the reader will say that these inconsistencies, how- 
ever they may impeach the skilfulness of the writer, do not 
prove that his system is unsound, or that Utility is not still 
the ultimate standard of rectitude. We answer, that to a 
Christian writer such inconsistencies are unavoidable. He 
is obliged, in conformity with the principles of his religion, to 
acknowledge the divine, and therefore the supreme authority 
of Scripture ; and if, in addition to this, he assumes that any 
other is supreme, inconsistency must ensue. For the same 
consequence follows the adoption of any other ultimate stan- 
dard — whether sympathy, or right reason, or eternal fitness, 
or nature. If the writer is a Christian he cannot, without 
falling into inconsistencies, assert the supremacy of any of 
these principles : that is to say, when the precepts of Scrip- 

* Mor. and Pol. Phil. B. 6, c. 3. t B. 2, c. 6. $ B. 3, p. 3. c. 2. 
§ B. 6, p. 3. p. 10. || B. 2, c. 9. IT B. 6, p. 3, c. 10 



CHAP. II.] STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG. 



27 



ture dictate one action, and a reasoning from his principle 
dictates another, he must make his election: If he prefers 
his principle, Christianity is abandoned : if he prefers Scrip- 
ture, his principle is subordinate : if he alternately prefers 
the one and the other, he falls into the vacillation and incon- 
sistency of which we speak. 

Bearing still in mind that the rule "to endeavour to pro- 
duce the greatest happiness in our power," is objectionable 
only when it is made an ultimate rule, the reader is invited 
to attend to these short considerations. 

I. In computing human happiness, the advocate of Expe- 
diency does not sufficiently take into the account our happi- 
ness in futurity. Nor indeed does he always take it into 
account at all. One definition says, " The test of the morality 
of an act is its tendency to promote the temporal advantage 
of the greatest number in the society to which we belong." 
Now many things may be very expedient if death were anni- 
hilation, which may be very inexpedient now : and therefore 
it is not unreasonable to expect, nor an unreasonable exercise 
of humility to act upon the expectation, that the divine laws 
may sometimes impose obligations of which we do not per- 
ceive the expediency or the use. " It may so fall out," says 
Hooker, " that the reason why some laws of God were given, 
is neither opened nor possible to be gathered by the wit of 
man."* And Pearson says, " There are many parts of mo- 
rality, as taught by revelation, which are entirely independent 
of an accurate knowledge of nature."! And Gisborne, " Our 
experience of God's dispensations by no means pennits us to 
affirm, that he always thinks fit to act in such a manner as is 
productive of particular expediency ; much less to conclude 
that he wills us always to act in such a manner as we suppose 
would be productive of it. "J All this sufficiently indicates 
that Expediency is wholly inadmissible as an ultimate rule. 

II. The doctrine is altogether unconnected with the Chris- 
tian revelation, or any revelation from heaven. It was just 
as true, and the deductions from it just as obligatory, two or 
five thousand years ago as now. The alleged supreme law 
of morality — " Whatever is expedient is right" — might have 
been taught by Epictetus as well as by a modern Christian. 
But are we then to be told that the revelations from the Deity 
have conveyed no moral knowledge to man 1 that they make 
no act obligatory which was not obligatory before ? that he 
who had the fortune to discover that " whatever is expedient 

* Eccles. Polity, B. 3, s. 10. t Theory of Morals : c. 3. 

X Principles of "Mor. Phil. 



28 



STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG. [ESSAY I. 



is right," possessed a moral law just as perfect as that which 
God has ushered into the world, and much more comprehen- 
sive ? 

III. If some subordinate rule of conduct were proposed — 
some principle which served as an auxiliary moral guide — I 
should not think it a valid objection to its truth, to be told that 
no sanction of the principle was to be found in the written 
revelation : but if some rule of conduct were proposed as being 
of universal obligation, some moral principle which was para- 
mount to every other — and I discovered that this principle 
was unsactioned by the written revelation, I should think this 
want of sanction was conclusive evidence against it : because 
it is not credible that a revelation from God, of which one 
great object was to teach mankind the moral law of God, 
would have been silent respecting a rule of conduct which 
was to be an universal guide to man. We apply these con- 
siderations to the doctrine of Expediency : Scripture contains 
not a word upon the subject. 

IV. The principles of Expediency necessarily proceed 
upon the supposition that we are to investigate the future, and 
this investigation is, as every one knows, peculiarly without 
the limits of human sagacity : an objection which derives ad- 
ditional force from the circumstance that an action, in order 
to be expedient, " must be expedient on the whole, at the long 
run, in all its effects, collateral and remote."* I do not know 
whether, if a man should sit down expressly to devise a moral 
principle which should be uncertain and difficult in its appli- 
cation, he could devise one that would be more difficult and 
uncertain than this. So that, as Dr. Paley himself acknow- 
ledges, " It is impossible to ascertain every duty by an imme- 
diate reference to public utility."! The reader may therefore 
conclude with Dr. Johnson, that " by presuming to determine 
what is fit and what is beneficial, they presuppose more know- 
ledge of the universal system than man has attained, and there- 
fore depend upon principles too complicated and extensive 
for our comprehension : and there can be no security in the 
consequence when the premises are not under stood. "X 

V. But whatever may be the propriety of investigating all 
consequences " collateral and remote," it is certain that such 
an investigation is possible only in that class of moral ques- 
tions which allows a man time to sit down and deliberately 
to think and compute. As it respects that large class of cases 
in which a person must decide and act in a moment, it is 

* Mor. and Pol. Phil. B. 2, c. 8. t B. 6. c. 12. 

X Western Isles. 



CHAP. II.] STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG. 



29 



wholly useless. There are thousands of conjunctures in life 
in which a man can no more stop to calculate effects collate- 
ral and remote, than he can stop to cross the Atlantic : and 
it is difficult to conceive that any rule of morality can be ab- 
solute and universal, which is totally inapplicable to so large 
a portion of human affairs. 

VI. Lastly, the rule of Expediency is deficient in one 
of the first requisites of a moral law — obviousness and palpa- 
bility of sanction. What is the process by which the sanc- 
tion is applied ? Its advocates say, the Deity is a Benevolent 
Being: as he is benevolent himself, it is reasonable to con- 
clude he wills that his creatures should be benevolent to one 
another : this benevolence is to be exercised by adapting 
every action to the promotion of the " universal interest" of 
man : " Whatever is expedient is right :" or, God wills that 
we should consult Expediency. — Now we say that there are 
so many considerations placed between the rule and the act, 
that the practical authority of the rule is greatly diminished. 
It is easy to perceive that the authority of a rule will not come 
home to that man's mind, who is told, respecting a given ac- 
tion, that its effects upon the universal interest is the only 
thing that makes it right or wrong. All the doubts that arise 
as to this effect are so many diminutions of the sanction. It 
is like putting half a dozen new contingencies between the 
act of thieving and the conviction of a jury ; and every one 
knows that the want of certainty of penalty is a great encou- 
ragement to offences. The principle too is liable to the most 
extravagant abuse — or rather extravagant abuse is, in the pre- 
sent condition of mankind, inseparable from its general adop- 
tion. "Whatever is expedient is right," soliloquizes the 
moonlight adventurer into the poultry-yard : " It will tend more 
to the sum of human happiness that my wife and I should 
dine on a capon, than that the farmer should feel the satisfac- 
tion of possessing it ;" — and so he mounts the hen-roost. I 
do not say that this hungry moralist would reason soundly, 
but I say that he would not listen to the philosophy which 
replied, " Oh, your reasoning is incomplete : you must take 
into account all consequences collateral and remote ; and then 
you will find that it is more expedient, upon the whole and at 
the long run, that you and your wife should be hungry, than 
that hen-roosts should be insecure." 

It is happy, however, that this principle never can be gene- 
rally applied to the private duties of man. Its abuses would 
be so enormous that the laws would take, as they do in fact 
take, better measures for regulating men's conduct than this 



30 



STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG. [ESSAY I. 



doctrine supplies. And happily too, the Universal Lawgiver 
has not left mankind without more distinct and more influen- 
tial perceptions of his will and his authority, than they could 
ever derive from the principles of Expediency. 

But an objection has probably presented itself to the reader, 
that the greater part of mankind have no access to the written 
expression of the Will of God : and how, it may be asked, 
can that be the final standard of right and wrong for the hu- 
man race, of which the majority of the race have never heard ? 
The question is reasonable and fair. 

We answer then, first, that supposing most men to be desti- 
tute of a communication of the Divine Will, it does not affect 
the obligations of those who do possess it. That communi- 
cation is the final law to me, whether my African brother en- 
joys it or not. Every reason by which the supreme author- 
ity of the law is proved, is just as applicable to those who 
do. enjoy the communication of it, whether that communica- 
tion is enjoyed by many or by few ; and this, so far as the 
argument is concerned, appears to be a sufficient answer. If 
any man has no direct access to his Creator's will, let him 
have recourse to " eternal fitnesses," or to " expediency ;" but 
his condition does not affect that of another man who does 
possess this access. 

But our real reply to the objection is, that they who are 
destitute of Scripture, are not destitute of a direct communi- 
cation of the Will of God. The proof of this position must 
be deferred to a subsequent chapter ; and the reader is soli- 
cited for the present, to allow us to assume its truth. This 
direct communication may be limited, it may be incomplete, 
but some communication exists ; enough to assure them that 
some things are acceptable to the Supreme Power, and that 
some are not ; enough to indicate a distinction between right 
and wrong ; enough to make them moral agents, and reason- 
ably accountable to our Common Judge. If these principles 
are true, and especially if the amount of the communication is 
in many cases considerable, it is obvious that it will be of 
great value in the direction of individual conduct. We say 
of individual conduct, because it is easy to perceive that it 
would not often subserve the purposes of him who frames 
public rules of morality. A person may possess a satisfac- 
tory assurance in his own mind, that a given action is incon- 
sistent with the Divine Will, but that assurance is not con- 
veyed to another, unless he participates in the evidence upon 
which it is founded. That which is wanted in order to sup- 



CHAP. III.] SUBORDINATE STANDARDS, ETC 



31 



ply public rules for human conduct, is a publicly avouched 
authority ; so that a writer, in deducing those rules, has to 
apply, ultimately, to that Standard which God has publicly 
sanctioned. 



CHAPTER III. 

SUBORDINATE STANDARDS OF RIGHT AND WRONG. 

Foundation and limits of the authority of subordinate moral rules. 

The written expression of the Divine Will does not con- 
tain, and no writings can contain, directions for our conduct 
in every circumstance of life. If the precepts of Scripture 
were multiplied a hundred or a thousand fold, there would still 
arise a multiplicity of questions to which none of them would 
specifically apply. Accordingly, there are some subordinate 
authorities, to which, as can be satisfactorily shown, it is the 
Will of God that we should refer. He who does refer to 
them, and regulate his conduct by them, conforms to the will 
of God. 

To a son who is obliged to regulate all his actions by his 
father's will, there are two ways in which he may practise 
obedience — one, by receiving, upon each subject, his father's 
direct instructions ; and the other by receiving instructions 
from those whom his father commissions to teach him. The 
parent may appoint a governor, and enjoin, that upon all ques- 
tions of a certain kind the son shall conform to his instruc- 
tions ; and if the son does this, he as truly and really per- 
forms his father's will, and as strictly makes that will the 
guide of his conduct, as if he received the instructions im- 
mediately from his parent. But if the father have laid down 
certain general rules for his son's observance, as that he 
shall devote ten hours a-day to study, and not less — although 
the governor should recommend or even command him to de- 
vote fewer hours, he may not comply ; for if he does, the 
governor, and not his father, is his supreme guide. The sub- 
ordination is destroyed. 

This case illustrates, perhaps, with sufficient precision, the 
situation of mankind with respect to moral rules. Our Crea- 
tor has given direct laws, some general and some specific. 
These are of final authority. But he has also sanctioned, or 



I 



32 



IDENTICAL AUTHORITY OF 



[ESSAY t. 



permitted an application to, other rules ; and in conforming to 
these, so long as we hold them in subordination to his laws, 
we perform his will. 

Of these subordinate rules it were possible to enumerate 
many. Perhaps, indeed, few principles have been proposed 
as " The fundamental Rules of Virtue," which may not rightly 
be brought into use by the Christian in regulating his conduct 
in life : for the objection to many of these principles is, not 
so much that they are useless, as that they are unwarranted 
as paramount laws. " Sympathy" may be of use, and " Na- 
ture" may be of use, and " Self-love," and " Benevolence ;" 
and to those who know what it means, " Eternal fitnesses too." 

Some of the subordinate rules of conduct it will be proper 
hereafter to notice, in order to discover, if we can, how far 
their authority extends, and where it ceases. The observa- 
tions that we shall have to offer upon them may conveniently 
be made under these heads : The Law of the Land, The Law 
of Nature, The Promotion of Human Happiness or Expe- 
diency, The Law of Nations, The Law of Honour. 

These observations will, however, necessarily be preceded 
by an enquiry into the great principles of human duty as they 
are delivered in Scripture, and into the reality of that com- 
munication of the Divine Will to the mind, which the reader 
has been requested to allow us to assume. 



CHAPTER IV. 

COLLATERAL OBSERVATIONS. 

The reader is requested to regard the present chapter as parenthetical. 
The parenthesis is inserted here, because the writer does not know whera 
more appropriately to place it. 



IDENTICAL AUTHORITY OF MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
OBLIGATIONS. 

Identical authority of moral and religious obligations — The Divine attri- 
butes — Of deducing rules of human duty from a consideration of the 
attributes of God — Virtue : " Virtue is conformity with the standard of 
rectitude" — Motives of action. 

This identity is a truth to which we do not sufficiently ad- 
vert either in our habitual sentiments or in our practice. 



CHAP. IV.] MORAL AND RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS. 



33 



There are many persons who speak of religious duties, as if 
there was something sacred or imperative in their obligation 
that does not belong to duties of morality — many, who would 
perhaps offer up their lives rather than profess a belief in a 
false religious dogma, but who would scarcely sacrifice an 
hour's gratification rather than violate the moral law of love. 
It is therefore of importance to remember that the authority 
which imposes moral obligations and religious obligations is one 
and the same — the Will of God. Fidelity to God is just as 
truly violated by a neglect of his moral laws, as by a compro- 
mise of religious principles. Religion and Morality are ab- 
stract terms, employed to indicate different classes of those 
duties which the Deity has imposed upon mankind ; but they 
are all imposed by Him, and all are enforced by equal author- 
ity. Not indeed that the violation of every particular portion 
of the Divine Will involves equal guilt, but that each viola- 
tion is equally a disregard of the Divine Authority. Whe- 
ther, therefore, fidelity be required to a point of doctrine or 
of practice, to theology or to morals, the obligation is the 
same. It is the Divine requisition which constitutes this ob- 
ligation, and not the nature of the duty required ; so that, 
whilst I think a Protestant does no more than his duty when 
he prefers death to a profession of the Roman Catholic faith, 
I think also that every Christian who believes that Christ has 
prohibited swearing, does no more than his duty when he 
prefers death to taking an oath. 

I would especially solicit the reader to bear in mind this 
principle of the identity of the authority of moral and religious 
obligations, because he may otherwise imagine that, in some 
of the subsequent pages, the obligation of a moral law is too 
strenuously insisted on, and that fidelity to it is to be purchased 
at " too great a sacrifice" of ease and enjoyment. 

THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 

The purpose for which a reference is here made to these 
sacred subjects, is to remark upon the unfitness of attempting 
to deduce human duties from the attributes of God. It is not 
indeed to be affirmed that no illustration of those duties can 
be derived from them, but that they are too imperfectly cog- 
nizable by our perceptions to enable us to refer to them for 
specific moral rules. The truth indeed is, that we do not ac- 
curately and distinctly know what the Divine Attributes are. 
We say that God is merciful ; but if we attempt to define, 
with strictness, what the term merciful means, we shall find 



34 



IDENTICAL AUTHORITY OF 



[ESSAY I. 



it a difficult, perhaps an impracticable task ; and especially 
we shall have a difficult task if, after the definition, we at- 
tempt to reconcile every appearance which presents itself in 
the world, with our notions of the attribute of mercy. I would 
speak with reverence when I say that we cannot always per- 
ceive the mercifulness of the Deity in his administrations, 
either towards his rational or his irrational creation. So, 
again, in respect of the attribute of Justice, who can deter- 
minately define in what this attribute consists ? Who, espe- 
cially, can prove that the Almighty designs that vje should 
always be able to trace his justice in his government ? We 
believe that he is unchangeable ; but what is the sense in 
which we understand the term 1 Do we mean that the attri- 
bute involves the necessity of an unchanging system of moral 
government, or that the Deity cannot make alterations in, or 
additions to, his laws for mankind 1 We cannot mean this, 
for the evidence of revelation disproves it. 

Now, if it be true that the Divine Attributes, and the uni- 
form accordancy of the divine dispensations with our notions 
of those attributes, are not sufficiently within our powers of 
investigation to enable us to frame accurate premises for our 
reasoning, it is plain that we cannot always trust with safety 
to our conclusions. We cannot deduce rules for our conduct 
from the Divine Attributes without being very liable to error ; 
and the liability will increase in proportion as the deduction 
attempts critical accuracy. 

Yet this is a rock upon which the judgments of many have 
suffered wreck, a quicksand where many have been involved 
in inextricable difficulties. One, because he cannot recon- 
cile the commands to exterminate a people with his notions 
of the attribute of mercy, questions the truth of the Mosaic 
writings. One, because he finds wars permitted by the Al- 
mighty of old, concludes that, as he is unchangeable, they 
cannot be incompatible with his present or his future Will. 
One, on the supposition of this unchangeableness, perplexes 
himself because the dispensations of God and his laws have 
been changed ; and vainly labours, by classifying these laws 
into those which result from his attributes, and those which 
do not, to vindicate the immutability of God. We have no 
business with these things, and I will venture to affirm that 
he who will take nothing upon trust — who will exercise no 
faith — who will believe in the divine authority of no rule, and 
in the truth of no record, which he is unable to reconcile with 
the Divine Attributes — must be consigned to hopeless Pyr- 
rhonism. 



CHAP. IV.] MORAL AND RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS. 



35 



The lesson which such considerations t.each is a simple 
but an important one : That our exclusive business is to dis- 
cover the actual present Will of God, without enquiring why 
his will is such as it is, or why it has ever been different ; 
and without seeking to deduce, from our notions of the Di- 
vine Attributes, rules of conduct which are more safely and 
more certainly discovered by other means. 

VIRTUE. 

The definitions which have been proposed of Virtue have 
necessarily been both numerous and various, because many 
and discordant standards of rectitude have been advanced ; 
and virtue must, in every man's system, essentially consist in 
conforming the conduct to the standard which he thinks is 
the true one. This must be true of those systems, at least, 
which make Virtue consist in doing right. — Adam Smith in- 
deed says, that " Virtue is excellence ; something uncom- 
monly great and beautiful, which rises far above what is vul- 
gar and ordinary."* By which it would appear that Virtue 
is a relative quality, depending not upon some perfect or per- 
manent standard, but. upon the existing practice of mankind. 
Thus the action which possessed no Virtue amongst a good 
community, might possess much in a bad one. The practice 
which " rose far above" the ordinary practice of one nation, 
might be quite common in another : and if mankind should 
become much worse than they are now, that conduct would 
be eminently virtuous amongst them which now is not vir- 
tuous at all. That such a definition of Virtue is likely to lead 
to very imperfect practice is plain ; for what is the probability 
that a man will attain to that standard which God proposes, 
if his utmost estimate of Virtue rises no higher than to an in- 
determinate superiority over other men ? 

Our definition of Virtue necessarily accords with the Prin- 
ciples of Morality which have been advanced in the preced- 
ing chapter : Virtue is conformity with the Standard of Recti- 
tude ; winch standard consists, primarily, in the expressed 
Will of God. 

Virtue, as it respects the meritoriousness of the agent, is 
another consideration. The quality of an action is one thing, 
the desert of the agent is another. The business of him who 
illustrates moral rules, is not with the agent, but with the act. 
He must state what the moral law pronounces to be right and 
wrong : but it is very possible that an individual may do what 

* Theo. Mor. Sent. 



36 



IDENTICAL AUTHORITY OF, ETC. [ESSAY I. 



is right without any Virtue, because there may be no rectitude 
in his motives and intentions. He does a virtuous act, but he 
is not a virtuous agent. 

Although the concern of a work like the present is evi- 
dently with the moral character of actions, without reference 
to the motives of the agent ; yet the remark may be allowed, 
that there is frequently a sort of inaccuracy and unreasonable- 
ness in the judgments which we form of the deserts of other 
men. We regard the act too much, and the intention too 
little. The footpad who discharges a pistol at a traveller and 
fails in his aim, is just as wicked as if he had killed him ; 
yet we do not feel the same degree of indignation at his 
crime. So, too, of a person who does good. A man who 
plunges into a river and saves a child from drowning, im- 
presses the parents with a stronger sense of his deserts than 
if, with the same exertions, he had failed. — We should en- 
deavour to correct this inequality of judgment, and in forming 
our estimates of human conduct, should refer, much more than 
we commonly do, to what the agent intends. It should habi- 
tually be borne in mind, and especially with reference to our 
own conduct, that to have been unable to execute an ill inten- 
tion deducts nothing from our guilt ; and that at that tribunal 
where intention and action will be both regarded, it will avail 
little if we can only say that we have done no evil. Nor let it be 
less remembered, with respect to those who desire to do good 
but have not the power, that their Virtue is not diminished by 
their want of ability. I ought, perhaps, to be as grateful to 
the man who feelingly commiserates my sufferings but cannot 
relieve them, as to him who sends me money or a physician. 
The mite of the widow of old was estimated even more highly 
than the greater offerings of the rich. 



CHAP. V.] 



PATRIARCHAL, MOSAIC, ETC. 



37 



CHAPTER T, 

SCRIPTURE, 

The morality ef the Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian dispensations— 
Their moral requisitions net always coincident — Supremacy of the 
Christian morality — Of variations in the Moral Law — Mode of apply- 
ing the precepts of Scripture to the questions of duty — No formal mo- 
ral system in Scripture — Criticism of Biblical morality — Of particular 
precepts and general rules — Matt. vii. 10. — 1 Cor. x. 31. — Rom. iii. 8. — 
Benevolence, as it is proposed m the Christian Scriptures. 

THE MORALITY OF THE PATRIARCHAL. MOSAIC, AND 
CHRISTIAN DISPENSATIONS, 

Oxe of the very interesting considerations which are pre- 
sented to an enquirer in perusing the volume of Scripture, 
consists in the variations in its morality. There are three 
distinctly defined periods, in which the moral government 
and laws of the Deity assume, in some respects, a different 
character. In the first, without any system of external in- 
struction, he communicated his Will to some of our race, 
either immediately or through a superhuman messenger. In 
the second, he promulgated, through Moses, a distinct and 
extended code of laws, addressed peculiarly to a selected 
people. In the third, Jesus Christ and his commissioned 
ministers, delivered precepts, of which the general character 
was that of greater purity or perfection, and of which the ob- 
ligation was universal upon mankind. 

That the records of all these dispensations contain declara- 
tions of the Will of God, is certain : that their moral requisi- 
tions are not always coincident, is also certain ; and hence 
the conclusion becomes inevitable, that to us, one is of primary 
authority; — that when all do not coincide, one is paramount 
to the others. That a coincidence does not always exist, 
may easily be shown. It is manifest, not only by a compari- 
son of precepts and of the general tenor of the respective re- 
cords, but from the express declarations of Christianity itself. 

One example, referring to the Christian and Jewish dis- 
pensations, may be found in the extension of the law of Love. 
Christianity, in extending the application of this law, requires 
us to abstain from that which the law of Moses permitted us 
to do. Thus it is in the instance of duties to our " neigh- 
bour," as they are illustrated in the parable of the Samaritan.* 

* Luke, x. 30. 

4 • 



38 



PATRIARCHAL, MOSAIC, AND 



[ESSAY I. 



Thus, too, in the sermon on the mount: "It hath been said 
by them of old time, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate 
thine enemy : but / say unto you, Love your enemies."* It is 
indeed sometimes urged that the words " hate thine enemy," 
were only a gloss of the expounders of the law : but Grotius 
writes thus — " What is there repeated as said to those of old, 
are not the words of the teachers of the law, but of Moses ; 
either literally or in their meaning. They are cited by our 
Saviour as his express words, not as interpretations of them."f 
If the authority of Grotius should not satisfy the reader, let 
him consider such passages as this : " An Ammonite or a 
Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord. 
Because they met you not with bread and with water in the 
way, when ye came forth out of Egypt. Thou shall not seek 
their peace nor their prosperity all thy days for ever."! This 
is not coincident with, " Love your enemies ;" or with, " Do 
%ood to them that hate you ;" or with that temper which is 
recommended by the words, " to him that smiteth thee on 
one cheek, turn the other also."§ 

" Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, 
and upon the families that call not on thy name,"|| — is not 
coincident with the reproof of Christ to those who, upon simi- 
lar grounds, would have called down fire from heaven.^ 
" The Lord look upon it and require it,"** — is not coincident 
with, " Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. "ft " Let me 
see thy vengeance on them,"|J — " Bring upon them the day 
of evil, and destroy them with double destruction,"^ — is not 
coincident with " Forgive them, for they know not what they 
do."H|| 

Similar observations applying to Swearing, to Polygamy, 
to Retaliation, to the motives of murder and adultery. 

And as to the express assertion of the want of coincidence : 
— " The law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a 
better hope did."T1[ " There is verily a disannulling of the 
commandment going before, for the weakness and unprofitable- 
ness thereof."*** If the commandment now existing is not 
weak and unprofitable, it must be because it is superior to that 
which, existed before. 

But although this appears to be thus clear with respect to 
the Jewish dispensation, there are some who regard the 

* Matt. v. 43. t Rights of War and Peace, 

t Deut. xxiii. 3, 4, 6. § Matt. v. 39. || Jer. x. 25. 

% Luke, ix. 54. ** 2 Chron. xxiv. 22. tt Acts, vii. 60. 

tt Jer. xx. 12. Jer. xvii. 18. |]|| Luke, xxiii. 34. 

1T1T Heb. vii. 19. *** Heb. vii. 18 



CHAP. V.] 



CHRISTIAN DISPENSATIONS. 



39 



moral precepts which were delivered before the period of 
that dispensation, as imposing permanent obligations : they 
were delivered, it is said, not to one peculiar people, but to 
individuals of many ; and, in the persons of the immediate 
survivors of the deluge, to the whole human race. This argu- 
ment assumes a ground paramount to all questions of subse- 
quent abrogation. Now it would appear a sufficient answer 
to say — If the precepts of the Patriarchal and Christian dis- 
pensations are coincident, no question needs to be discussed ; 
if they are not, we must make an election ; and surely the 
Christian cannot doubt what election he should make. Could 
a Jew have justified himself for violating the Mosaic law, by 
urging the precepts delivered to the patriarchs ? No. Neither 
then can we justify ourselves for violating the Christian law, 
by urging the precepts delivered to Moses. 

We indeed have, if it be possible, still stronger motives. 
The moral law of Christianity binds us, not merely because 
it is the present expression of the Will of God, but because it 
is a portion of his last dispensation to man — of that which is 
avowedly not only the last, but the highest and the best. We 
do not find in the records of Christianity that which we find 
in the other Scriptures, a reference to a greater and purer dis- 
pensation yet to come. It is as true of the Patriarchal as of 
the Mosaic institution, that " it made nothing perfect," and 
that it referred us from the first, to " the bringing in of that 
better hope which did." If then the question of supremacy 
is between a perfect and an imperfect system, who will hesi- 
tate 'in his decision? 

There are motives of gratitude, too, and of affection, as well 
as of reason. The clearer exhibition which Christianity 
* gives of the attributes of God ; its distinct disclosure of our 
immortal destinies ; and above all, its wonderful discovery of 
the love of our Universal Father, may well give to the moral 
law with which they are connected, an authority which may 
supersede every other. 

These considerations are of practical importance ; for it 
may be observed of those who do not advert to them, that they 
sometimes refer indiscriminately to the Old Testament or the 
New, without any other guide than the apparent greater ap- 
plicability of a precept in the one or the other, to their pre- 
sent need : and thus it happens that a rule is sometimes acted 
upon, less perfect than that by which it is the good pleasure 
of God we should now regulate our conduct. — It is a fact 
which the reader should especially notice, that an appeal to 
the Hebrew Scriptures is frequently made vilien the precepts of 



40 



PATRIARCHAL, JfOSArC, ANJJ' 



[essay X, 



Christianity would be too rigid for our purpose. He who in- 
sists upon a pure morality, applies- to the New Testament : 
he who desires a little more indulgence y defends himself by* 
arguments from the Old. 

Of this indiscriminate reference to all the dispensations r 
there is an extraordinary example in the newly discovered 
work of Milton. He appeals, I believe, almost uniformly to 
the precepts of all, as of equal present obligation. The con- 
sequence is what might be expected — his moral system is not 
consistent, Nor is it to be forgotten, that in defending what 
may be regarded as less pure doctrines, he refers- mostly, or 
exclusively, to the Hebrew Scriptures, In all his disquisi- 
tions to prove the lawfulness of untruths, he does not once 
refer to the New Testament.* Those who have observed 
the prodigious multiplicity of texts which he cites in this 
work T will peculiarly appreciate the importance of the fact. — 
Again : 66 Hatred,' 7 he says, " is in some cases a religious 
duty."f A proposition at which the Christian may reasonably 
wonder. And how does Milton prove its truth ? He cites 
from Scripture ten passages ; of which eight are from the Old 
Testament and two from the New. The reader will be curi- 
ous to know what these two are : — " If any man come to me 
and hate not his father and mother — he cannot be my dis- 
ciple."! And the rebuke to Peter ; "-Get thee behind rae, 
Satan. "§ The citation of such passages shows that no pas- 
sages to the purpose could be found. 

It may be regarded therefore as a genera] rule, that none 
of the injunctions or permissions which formed a part of the 
former dispensations, can be referred to as of authority to us,, 
except so far as they are coincident with the Christian law. 
To our own Master we stand or fall ; and our Master is 
Christ. — x\nd in estimating- this coincidence, it is not requi- 
site to show that a given rule or permission of the fonner dis- 
pensations is specifically superseded in the New Testament. 
It is sufficient if it is not accordant with the general spirit ; 
and this consideration assumes greater weight when it is con- 
nected with another which is hereafter to be noticed — that it 
is by the general spirit of the Christian morality that many 
of the duties of man are to be discovered. 

Yet it is always to be remembered, that the laws which 
are thus superseded were, nevertheless, the laws of God. 
Let not the reader suppose that we would speak or feel re- 
specting them otherwise than with that reverence which their 

* Christian Doctrine, p. 660. t P. 641. 

X Luke xiv. 26. § Mark viiL 33. 



CHAP. V.] CHRISTIAN DISPENSATIONS. 41 

origin demands — or that we would take any thing from their 
present obligation but that which is taken by the Lawgiver 
himself. It may indeed he observed, that in all his dispen- 
sations there is a harmony, a one pervading principle, which, 
without other evidence, indicates that they proceeded from 
the same authority. The variations are circumstantial rather 
than fundamental ; and, after all, the great principles in which 
they accord, far outweigh the particular applications in which 
they differ. The Mosaic Dispensation was " a schoolmaster" 
to bring us, not merely through the medium of types and pro- 
phecies, but through its moral law, to Christ. Both the one 
and the other were designed as preparatives ; and it was pro- 
bably as true of these moral laws as of the prophecies, that 
the Jews did not perceive their relationship to Christianity as 
it was actually introduced into the world. 

Respecting the variations of the moral law, some persons 
greatly and very needlessly perplex themselves by indulging 
in such questions as these. — " If," say they, " God be perfect, 
and if all the dispensations are communications of his will, 
how happens it that they are not uniform in their requisitions 1 
How happens it that that which was required by Infinite 
Knowledge at one time, was not required by Infinite Know- 
ledge at another?" I answer — I cannot tell. And what 
then ? Does the enquirer think this a sufficient reason for 
rejecting the authority of the Christian law ? If inability to 
discover the reasons of the moral government of God be a 
good motive to doubt its authority, we may involve ourselves 
in doubts without end. — Why does a Being who is infinitely 
pure permit moral evil in the world ? Why does he who is 
perfectly benevolent permit physical suffering ? Why did he 
suffer our first parents to fall ? Why, after they had fallen, 
did he not immediately repair the loss 1 Why was the Mes- 
siah's appearance deferred for four thousand years ? Why is 
not the religion of the Messiah universally operative at the 
present day ? To all these questions, and to many others, no 
answer can be given : and the difficulty arising from them is 
as great, if we choose to make difficulties for ourselves, as 
that which arises from variations in his moral laws. Even 
in infidelity we shall find no rest : the objections lead us on- 
ward to atheism. He who will not believe in a Deity unless 
he can reconcile all the facts before his eyes with his notions 
of the divine attributes, must deny that a Deity exists. I 
talked of rest : — Alas ! there is no rest in infidelity or in athe- 
ism. To disbelieve in revelation or in God, is not to escape 

4* 



42 



PATRIARCHAL , MOSAIC, AND 



[essay I. 



from a belief in tilings which you do not comprehend, but to 
transfer your belief to a new class of such things. Unbelief 
is credulity. The infidel is more credulous than the Chris- 
tian, and the atheist is the most credulous of mankind : that 
is, he believes important propositions upon less evidence than 
any other man, and in opposition to greater. 

It is curious to observe the anxiety of some writers to re- 
concile some of the facts before us with the " moral perfec- 
tions" of the Deity ; and it is instructive to observe into what 
doctrines they are led. They tell us that all the evil and all 
the pain in the world, are parts of a great system of Benevo- 
lence. " The moral and physical evil observable in the sys- 
tem, according to men's limited views of it, are necessary 
parts of the great plan ; all tending ultimately to produce the 
greatest sum of happiness upon the whole, not only with re- 
spect to the system in general, but to each individual, accord- 
ing to the station he occupies in it."* They affirm that God 
is an " allwise Being, who directs all the movements of na- 
ture, and who is determined, by his own unalterable perfec- 
tions, to maintain initatalltimes*the greatest possible quantity 
of happiness."! The Creator found, therefore, that to inflict 
the misery which now exists, was the best means of promot- 
ing this happiness — that to have abated the evil, the suffer- 
ing, or the misery, would be to have diminished the sum of 
felicity — and that men could not have been better or more at 
ease than they are, without making them on the whole more 
vicious or unhappy ! — These things are beacons which should 
warn us. These speculations show that not only religion, but 
reason, dictates the propriety of acquiescing in that degree of 
ignorance in which it has pleased God to leave us ; because 
they show, that attempts to acquire knowledge may conduct 
us to folly. These are subjects upon which he acts most ra- 
tionally, who says to his reason — be still. 

MODE OF APPLYING THE PRECEPTS OP SCRIPTURE TO 
QUESTIONS OF DUTY. 

It is remarkable that many of these precepts, and especially 
those of the Christian Scriptures, are delivered, not systemati- 
cally but occasionally. They are distributed through occa- 
sional discourses and occasional letters. Except in the in- 

* This is given as the belief of Dr. Priestly. See Memoirs : Ap. No. 5. 

t Adam Smith: Theory of Moral Sentiments. See alsoT. Southwood 
Smith's Illustrations of the Divine Government, in which unbridled li- 
cense of speculation has led the writer into some instructive absurdities. 



CHAP. V.] 



CHRISTIAN DISPENSATIONS. 



43 



stance of the law of Moses, the speaker or writer rarely set 
about a formal exposition of moral truth. The precepts were 
delivered as circumstances called them forth or made them 
needful. There is nothing like a system of morality ; nor, 
consequently, does there exist that completeness, that distinct- 
ness in defining and accuracy in limiting, which, in a system 
of morality, we expect to find. Many rules are advanced in 
short absolute prohibitions or injunctions, without assigning 
any of those exceptions to their practical application, which 
the majority of such rules require. — The enquiry, in passing, 
may be permitted — Why are these things so ? When it is 
considered what the Christian dispensation is, and what it is 
designed to effect upon the conduct of man, it cannot be sup- 
posed that the incompleteness of its moral precepts happened 
by inadvertence. The precepts of the former dispensation 
are much more precise ; and it is scarcely to be supposed 
that the more perfect dispensation would have had a less pre- 
cise law, unless the deficiency were to be compensated from 
some other authoritative source : — which remark is offered as 
a reason, a priori, for expecting that, in the present dispensa- 
tion, God would extend the operation of his law written in the 
heart. 

But whatever may be thought of this, it is manifest that 
considerable care is requisite in the application of precepts, 
so delivered, to the conduct of life. To apply them in all 
cases literally, were to act neither reasonably nor consistently 
with the designs of the Lawgiver : to regard them in all cases 
as mere general directions, and to subject them to the unau- 
thorized revision of man, were to deprive them of their pro- 
per character and authority as divine laws. In proposing 
some grounds for estimating the practical obligation of these 
precepts, I would be first allowed to express the conviction, 
that the simple fact that such a disquisition is needed, and 
that the moral duties are to be gathered rather by implication 
or general tenor than from specific and formal rules, is one 
indication amongst the many, that the dispensation of which 
these precepts form a part, stands not in words but in power : 
and I hope to be forgiven, even in a book of morality, if I 
express the conviction that none can fulfil their requisitions — 
that none indeed can appreciate them — without some partici- 
pation in this " power." I say he cannot appreciate them. 
Neither the morals nor the religion of Christianity can be 
adequately estimated by the man who sits down to the New 
Testament, with no other preparation than that which is ne- 
cessary in sitting down to Euclid or Newton. There must 



44 



PATRIARCHAL, MOSAIC, AND 



[essay I. 



be some preparation of heart as well as integrity of under-' 
standing — or, as the appropriate language of the volume itself 
would express it, it is necessary that we should become, in 
some degree, the " sheep" of Christ before we can accurately 
" know his voice." 

There is one clear and distinct ground upon which we may 
limit the application of a precept that is couched in absolute 
language — the unlawfulness, in any given conjuncture, of obey- 
ing it. " Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man."* 
This, literally, is an unconditional command. But if we were 
to obey it unconditionally, we should sometimes comply with 
human, in opposition to divine laws. In such cases then, 
the obligation is clearly suspended ; and this distinction, the 
first teachers of Christianity recognized in their own practice. 
When an " ordinance of man" required them to forbear the 
promulgation of the new religion, they refused obedience ; 
and urged the befitting expostulation — " Whether it be right 
in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, 
judge ye."f So, too, with the filial relationship : " Children 
obey your parents in all things. "J But a parent may require 
his child to lie or steal ; and therefore when a parent requires 
obedience in such things his authority ceases, and the obliga- 
tion to obedience is taken away by the moral law itself. The 
precept, so far as the present ground of exception applies, is 
virtually this : Obey your parents in all things, unless disobe- 
dience is required by the will of God. Or the subject might 
be illustrated thus : The Author of Christianity reprobates 
those who love father or mother more than himself. The pa- 
ramount love to God is to be manifested by obedience. § So, 
then, we are to obey the commands of God in preference to 
those of our parents. " All human authority ceases at the 
point where obedience becomes criminal." || 

Of some precepts, it is evident that they were designed to 
be understood conditionally. " When thou prayest, enter into 
thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy 
Father which is in secret." 4 ^ This precept is conditional. I 
doubt not that it is consistent with his will that the greater 
number of the supplications which man offers at his throne 
shall be offered in secret ; yet, that the precept does not ex- 
clude the exercise of public prayer, is evident from this con- 
sideration, if from no other, that Christ and his apostles them- 
selves practised it. 

* 1 Pet. ii. 13. t Acts iv. 19. t Col. iii. 20. 

§ If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments. — John xiv. 15. 
i| Mor.. and Pol. Phil. IT Matt. vi. 6. 



CHAP. V.] 



CHRISTIAN DISPENSATIONS. 



45 



Some precepts are figurative, and describe the spirit and 
temper that should govern us, rather than the particular ac- 
lions that we should perform. Of this there is an example 
in. " Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him 
twain."* In promulgating some precepts, a principal object 
appears to have been, to supply sanctions. Thus in the case 
of Civil Obedience : we are to obey because the Deity autho- 
rizes the institution of Civil Government — because the magis- 
trate is the minister of God for good ; and, accordingly, we 
are to obey not from considerations of necessity only, but of 
duty ; "not only for wrath, but for conscience sake ."f One pre- 
cept, if we accept it literally, would enjoin us to " hate" our 
parents ; and this acceptation, Milton appears actually to have 
adopted. One would enjoin us to accumulate no property : 
" Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth. "| Such 
rules are seldom mistaken in practice ; and, it maybe observed, 
that this is an indication of their practical wisdom, and their 
practical adaptation to the needs of man. It is not an easy 
thing to pronounce, as occasions arise, a large number of mo- 
ral precepts in unconditional language, and yet to secure them 
from the probability of even great misconstructions. Let the 
reader make the experiment. — Occasionally, but it is only 
occasionally, a sincere Christian, in his anxiety to conform to 
the moral law, accepts such precepts in a more literal sense 
than that in which they appear to have been designed to be 
applied. I once saw a book that endeavoured to prove the 
unlawfulness of accumulating any property ; upon the autho- 
rity, primarily, of this last quoted precept. The principle 
upon which the writer proceeded was just and right — that it 
is necessary to conform, unconditionally, to the expressed Will 
of God. The defect was in the criticism ; that is to say, in 
ascertaining what that Will did actually require. 

Another obviously legitimate ground of limiting the appli- 
cation of absolute precepts, is afforded us in just biblical criti- 
cism. Not that critical disquisitions are often necessary to 
the upright man who seeks for the knowledge of his duties. 
God has not left the knowledge of his moral law so remote 
from the sincere seekers of his will. But in deducing public 
rules as authoritative upon mankind, it is needful to take into 
account those considerations which criticism supplies. The 
construction of the original languages and their peculiar 
phraseology, the habits, manners, and prevailing opinions of 
the times, and the circumstances under which a precept was 



* Matt. v. 41. 



i Rom. xiii. 5. 



I Matt. vi. 19. 



46 



PATRIARCHAL, MOSAIC, AND 



[essay I. 



delivered, are evidently amongst these considerations. And 
literary criticism is so much the more needed, because the 
great majority of mankind have access to Scripture only 
through the medium of translations. 

But in applying all these limitations to the absolute precepts 
of Scripture, it is to be remembered that we are not subjecting 
their authority to inferior principles. We are not violating the 
principle upon which these essays proceed, that the expres- 
sion of the Divine Will is our ultimate law. We are only 
ascertaining what that expression is. If, after just and author- 
ized examination, any precept should still appear to stand 
imperative in its absolute form, we accept it as obligatory in 
that form. Many such precepts there are ; and being such, 
we allow no considerations of convenience, nor of expediency, 
nor considerations of any other kind, to dispense with their 
authority. 

One great use of such inquiries as these, is to vindicate to 
the apprehensions of men the authority of the precepts them- 
selves. It is very likely to happen, and to some negligent 
enquirers it does happen, that seeing a precept couched in 
unconditional language, which yet cannot be unconditionally 
obeyed, they call in question its general obligation. Their 
minds fix upon the idea of some consequences which would 
result from a literal obedience, and feeling assured that those 
consequences ought not to be undertaken, they set aside the 
precept itself. They are at little pains to enquire what the 
proper requisitions of the precept are — glad, perhaps, of a 
specious excuse for not regarding it at all. The careless 
reader, perceiving that a literal compliance with the precept 
to give the cloak to him who takes a coat, would be neither 
proper nor right, rejects the whole precept of which it forms 
an illustration ; and in doing this, rejects one of the most 
beautiful, and important, and sacred requisitions of the Chris- 
tian law.* 



There are two modes in which moral obligations are im- 
posed in Scripture — by particular precepts, and by general 
rules. The one prescribes a duty upon one subject, the other 
upon very many. The applicability of general rules is nearly 
similar to that of what is usually called the spirit of the gos- 
pel, the spirit of the moral law : which spirit is of very wide 
embrace in its application to the purposes of life. " In esti- 
mating the value of a moral rule, we are to have regard not 



* Matt. v. 38. 



CHAP. V.] 



CHRISTIAN DISPENSATIONS. 



47 



only to the particular duty, but the general spirit ; not only to 
lvhat it directs us to do, but to the character which a com- 
pliance with its direction is likely to form in us."* In this 
manner, some particular precepts become, in fact, general 
rules ; and the duty that results from these rules, from this 
spirit, is as obligatory as that which is imposed by a specific in- 
junction. Christianity requires us to maintain universal benev- 
olence towards mankind ; and he who, in his conduct towards 
another, disregards this benevolence, is as truly and some- 
times as flagrantly a violator of the moral law, as if he had 
transgressed the command, " Thou shalt not steal." This 
doctrine is indeed recommended by a degree of utility that 
makes its adoption almost a necessity ; because no number 
of specific precepts would be sufficient for the purposes of 
moral instruction : so that, if we were destitute of this species 
of general rules, Ave should frequently be destitute, so far as 
external precepts are concerned, of any. It appears by a note 
to the work which has just been cited, that in the Mussulman 
code, which proceeds upon the system of a precise rule for a 
precise question, there have been promulgated seventy-jive 
thousand precepts. I regard the wide practical applicability 
of some of the Christian precepts as an argument of great 
wisdom. They impose many duties in few words ; or rather, 
they convey a great mass of moral instruction within a sen- 
tence that all may remember and that few can mistake. " All 
things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye 
even so to them,"f is of greater utility in the practice of life, 
and is applicable to more circumstances, than a hundred rules 
which presented the exact degree of kindness or assistance 
that should be afforded in prescribed cases. The Mosaic law, 
rightly regarded, conveyed many clear expositions of human 
duty ; yet the quibbling and captious scribes of old found, in 
the literalities of that law, more plausible grounds for evading 
its duties, than can be found in the precepts of the Christian 
Scriptures. 

There are a few precepts of which the application is so ex- 
tensive in human affairs, that I would, in conformity with 
some of the preceding remarks, briefly enquire into their prac- 
tical obligation. Of these, that which has just been quoted 
for another purpose, " All things whatsoever ye would that 
men should do to you, do ye even so to them,"| is perhaps 
cited and recommended more frequently than any other. The 



* Evidences of Christianity : p. % c. 2. t Matt, vii- 12. J Ibid. 



48 



PATRIARCHAL, MOSAIC, AND 



[ESSAY I. 



difficulty of applying this precept has induced some to reject 
it as containing a moral maxim which is not sound : but per- 
haps it will be found, that the deficiency is not in the rule but 
in the non-applicability of the cases to which it has often been 
applied. It is not applicable when the act which another 
would that we should do to him, is in itself unlawful or adverse 
to some other portion of the Moral Law. If I seize a thief 
in the act of picking a pocket, he undoubtedly " would" that I 
should let him go ; and I, if our situations were exchanged, 
should wish it too. But I am not therefore to release him ; 
because, since it is a Christian obligation upon the magistrate 
to punish offenders, the obligation descends to me to secure 
them for punishment. Besides, in every such case I must do 
as I would be done unto with respect to all parties concerned — • 
the public as well as the thief. The precept, again, is not 
applicable when the desire of the second party is such as a 
Christian cannot lawfully indulge. An idle and profligate 
man asks me to give him money. It would be wrong to in- 
dulge such a man's desire, and therefore the precept does not 
apply. 

The reader will perhaps say ; that a person's duties in such 
cases are sufficiently obvious without the gravity of illustra- 
tion. Well — but are the principles upon which the duties are 
ascertained thus obvious ? This is the important point. In 
the affairs of life, many cases arise in which a person has to 
refer to such principles as these, and in which, if he does not 
apply the right principles, he will transgress the Christian 
law. The law appears to be in effect this, Do as you would 
be done unto, except in those instances in which to act other- 
wise is permitted by Christianity. Inferior grounds of limi- 
tation are often applied ; and they are always wrong ; because 
they always subject the Moral Law to suspension by inferior 
authorities. To do this, is to reject the authority of the Di- 
vine Will, and to place this beautiful expression of that Will 
at the mercy of every man's inclination. 

" Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to 
the glory of God."* I have heard of the members of some 
dinner club who had been recommended to consider this pre- 
cept, and who, in their discussions over the bottle, thought 
perhaps that they were arguing soundly when they held lan- 
guage like this : " Am I, in lifting this glass to my mouth, to 
do it for the purpose of bringing glory to God ? Is that to be 
my motive in buying a horse or shooting a pheasant ?" From 



* 1 Cor. x. 31. 



CHAP. V.] 



CHRISTIAN DISPENSATIONS. 



49 



such, moralists much sagacity of discrimination was not to be 
expected ; and these questions delighted and probably con- 
vinced the club. The mistake of these persons, and perhaps 
of some others, is, that they misunderstand the rule. The 
promotion of the Divine glory is not to be the motive and pur- 
pose of all our actions, but, having actions to perform, we are 
so to perform them that this glory shall be advanced. The 
precept is in effect, Let your actions and the motives of them 
be such, that others shall have reason to honour God :* — and 
a precept like this is a very sensitive test of the purity of our 
conduct. I know not whether there is a single rule of Chris- 
tianity of which the use is so constant and the application so 
universal. To do as we would be done by, refers to relative 
duties ; Not to do evil that good may come, refers to particular 
circumstances : but, To do all things so that the Deity may be 
honoured, refers to almost every action of a man's life. Happily 
the Divine glory is thus promoted by some men even in trifling 
affairs — almost whether they eat or drink, or whatsoever thing 
they do. There is, in truth, scarcely a more efficacious means 
of honouring the Deity, than by observing a constant Chris- 
tian manner of conducting our intercourse with men. He who 
habitually maintains his allegiance to religion and to purity, 
who is moderate and chastised in all his pursuits, and who 
always makes the prospects of the future predominate over 
the temptations of the present, is one of the most efficacious 
recommenders of goodness — one of the most impressive 
preachers of righteousness," — and by consequence, one of the 
most efficient promoters of the glory of God. 

By a part of Paul's Epistle to the Romans, it appears that 
he and his coadjutors had been reported to hold the doctrine, 
that it is lawful " to do evil that good may come."f This re- 
port he declares is slanderous ; and expresses his reprobation 
of those who act upon the doctrine, by the short and emphatic 
declaration — their condemnation is just. This is not critically 
a prohibition, but it is a prohibition in effect ; and the manner 
in which the doctrine is reprobated, induces the belief that it 
was so flagitious that it needed very little enquiry or thought : 
in the writer's mind the transition is immediate, from the idea 
of the doctrine to the punishment of those who adopt it. 

Now the " evil" which is thus prohibited, is, any thing and 
all things discordant with the divine will ; so that the unso- 
phisticated meaning of the rule is, that nothing which is con- 

* " Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good 
works, and glorify your father which is in heaven." — Matt. v. 16. 
t Rom. iii. 8. 

5 



50 



PATRIARCHAL, MOSAIC, AND [ESSAY I. 



trary to the Christian law may be done for the sake of attaining 
a beneficial end. Perhaps the breach of no moral rule is pro- 
ductive of more mischief than of this. That " the end justifies 
the means," is a maxim which many, who condemn it as a 
maxim, adopt in their practice : and in political affairs it is 
not only habitually adopted, but is indirectly, if not openly, 
defended as right. If a senator were to object to some mea- 
sure of apparent public expediency, that it was not consistent 
with the moral law, he would probably be laughed at as a 
fanatic or a fool : yet perhaps some who are flippant with this 
charge of fanaticism and folly may be in perplexity for a proof. 
If the expressed will of God is our paramount law, no proof 
can be brought ; and in truth it is not often that it is candidly 
attempted. I have not been amongst the least diligent enqui- 
rers into the moral reasonings of men, but honest and manly 
reasoning against this portion of Scripture I have never found. 

Of the rule, " not to do evil that good may come," Dr. Paley 
says, that it " is, for the most part, a salutary caution." A 
person might as well say that the rule " not to commit mur- 
der" is a salutary caution. There is no caution in the matter, 
but an imperative law. But he proceeds : — " Strictly speak- 
ing, that cannot be evil from which good comes."* Now let 
the reader consider : — Paul says, You may not do evil that 
good may come : Ay, but, says the philosopher, if good does 
come, the acts that bring it about are not evil. What the 
apostle would have said of such a reasoner, I will not trust 
my pen to suppose. The reader will perceive the foundation 
of this reasoning. It assumes that good and evil are not to 
be estimated by the expressions of the Will of God, but by 
the effects of actions. The question is clearly fundamental. 
If expediency be the ultimate test of rectitude, Dr. Paley is 
right ; if the expressions of the Divine Will are the ultimate 
test, he is wrong. You must sacrifice the one authority or 
the other. If this Will is the greater, consequences are not : 
if consequences are the greater, this Will is not. But this 
question is not now to be discussed : it may however be ob- 
served that the interpretation which the rule has been thus 
made to bear, appears to be contradicted by the terms of the 
rule itself. The rule of Christianity is, evil may not be com- 
mitted for the purpose of good : the rule of the philosophy is, 
Evil may not be committed, except for the purpose of good. 
Are these precepts identical? Is there not a fundamental 
variance, an absolute contrariety between them 1 Christianity 



* Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 2, c. 8. 



CHAP. V.] 



CHRISTIAN DISPENSATIONS. 



51 



does not speak of evil and good as contingent, but as fixed 
qualities. You cannot convert the one into the other by dis- 
quisitions about expediency. In morals, there is no philoso- 
pher's stone that can convert evil into good with a touch. 
Our labours, so long as the authority of the moral law is 
acknowledged, will end like those of the physical alchymist : 
after all our efforts at transmutation, lead will not become gold 
— evil will not become good. However, there is one subject 
of satisfaction in considering such reasonings as these. They 
prove, negatively, the truth which they assail ; for that against 
which nothing but sophistry can be urged, is undoubtedly 
true. The simple truth is, that if evil may be done for the 
sake of good, all the precepts of Scripture which define or 
prohibit evil are laws no longer ; for that cannot in any rational 
use of language be called a law in respect of those to whom 
it is directed, if they are at liberty to neglect it when they 
think fit. These precepts may be advices, recommendations, 
" salutary cautions" but they are not laws. They may suggest 
hints, but they do not impose duties. 

With respect to the legitimate grounds of exceptions or 
limitation in the application of this rule, there appear to be 
few or none. The only question is, What actions are evil ? 
Which question is to be determined, ultimately, by the Will 
of God. 

BENEVOLENCE AS IT IS PROPOSED IN THE CHRISTIAN 
SCRIPTURES. 

In enquiring into the great principles of that moral system 
which the Christian revelation institutes, we discover one 
remarkable characteristic, one pervading peculiarity by which 
it is distinguished from every other — the paramount emphasis 
which it lays upon the exercise of pure Benevolence. It will 
be found that this preference of " Love" is wise as it is un- 
exampled, and that no other general principle would effect, 
with any approach to the same completeness, the best and 
highest purposes of morality. How easy soever it be for us, 
to whom the character and obligations of this benevolence 
are comparatively familiar, to perceive the wisdom of placing 
it at the foundation of the Moral Law, we are indebted for the 
capacity not to our own sagaciousness, but to light which has 
been communicated from heaven. That schoolmaster the law 
of Moses never taught, and the speculations of philosophy 
never discovered, that Love was the fulfilment of the Moral 
Law. Eighteen hundred years ago this doctrine was a hew 
commandment. 



52 



PATRIARCHAL, MOSAIC, AND [ESSAY I. 



Love is made the test of the validity of our claims to the 
Christian character — " By this shall all men know that ye 
are my disciples."* Again, " — Love one another. He that 
loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt 
not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not bear 
false witness, Thou shalt not covet ; and if there be any other 
commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, 
namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love 
worketh no ill to his neighbour ; therefore Love is the fulfilling 
of the law."f It is not therefore surprising that after an enu- 
meration, in another place, of various duties, the same digni- 
fied apostle says, " Above all these things put on charity, 
which is the bond of perfectness."% The inculcation of this 
Benevolence is as frequent in the Christian Scriptures as its 
practical utility is great. He who would look through the 
volume will find that no topic is so frequently introduced, no 
obligations so emphatically enforced, no virtue to which the 
approbation of God is so specially promised. It is the theme 
of all the " apostolic exhortations, that with which their mo- 
rality begins and ends, from which all their details and enu- 
merations set out and into which *they return. "fy " He that 
dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."|| More 
emphatical language cannot be employed. It exalts to the 
utmost the character of the virtue, and, in effect, promises its 
possessor the utmost favour and felicity. If then, of Faith, 
Hope, and Love, Love be the greatest ; if it be by the test 
of love that our pretensions to Christianity are to be tried ; 
if all the relative duties of morality are embraced in one word, 
and that word is Love ; it is obviously needful that, in a book 
like this, the requisitions of Benevolence should be habitually 
regarded in the prosecution of its enquiries. And accordingly 
the reader will sometimes be invited to sacrifice inferior con- 
siderations to these requisitions, and to give to the law of 
Love that paramount station in which it has been placed by 
the authority of God. 

It is certain that almost every offence against the relative 
duties, has its origin, if not in the malevolent propensities, at 
least in those propensities which are incongruous with love. 
I know not whether it is possible to disregard any one obli- 
gation that respects the intercourse of man with man, without 
violating this great Christian law. This universal applica- 
bility may easily be illustrated by referring to the obligations 
of Justice, obligations which, in civilized communities, are 

* John xiii. 35. t Rom. xiii. 9. X Col. iii. 14. 

§ Evid. Christianity, p. 2, c 2. || 1 John iv. 1G. 



CHAP. V.] 



CHRISTIAN DISPENSATIONS. 



53 



called into operation more frequently than almost any other % 
He who estimates the obligations of justice by a reference to 
that Benevolence which Christianity prescribes, will form to 
himself a much more pure and perfect standard than he who 
refers to the law of the land, to the apprehension of exposure, 
or to the desire of reputation. There are many ways in which 
a man can be unjust without censure from the public, and 
without violating the laws ; but there is no way in which he 
can be unjust without disregarding Christian benevolence. 
It is an universal and very sensitive test. He who does re- 
gard it, who uniformly considers whether his conduct towards 
another is consonant with pure good will, cannot be volun- 
tarily unjust ; nor can he who commits injustice do it without 
the consciousness, if he will reflect, that he is violating the 
law of Love. That integrity which is founded upon Love, 
when compared with that which has any other basis, is recom- 
mended by its honour and dignity as well as by its rectitude. 
It is more worthy the man as well as the Christian, more 
beautiful in the eye of infidelity as well as of religion. 

It were easy, if it were necessary, to show in what manner 
the law of Benevolence applies to other relative duties, and 
in what manner, when applied, it purifies and exalts the ful- 
filment of them. But our present business is with principles 
rather than with their specific application. 

It is obvious that the obligations of this Benevolence are 
not merely prohibitory — directing us to avoid " working ill" 
to another, but mandatory — requiring us to do him good. That 
benevolence which is manifested only by doing no evil, is in- 
deed of a very questionable kind. To abstain from injustice, 
to abstain from violence, to abstain from slander, is compatible 
with an extreme deficiency of love. There are many who are 
neither slanderous, nor ferocious, nor unjust, who have yet 
very little regard for the benevolence of the gospel. In the 
illustrations therefore of the obligations of morality, whether 
private or political, it will sometimes become our business to 
state, what this Benevolence requires as well as what it for- 
bids. The legislator whose laws are contrived only for the 
detection and punishment of offenders, fulfils but half his duty : 
if he would conform to the Christian standard, he must pro- 
vide also for their reformation. 

5* 



54 



THE IMMEDIATE COMMUNICATION [ESSAY I 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE IMMEDIATE COMMUNICATION OF THE WILL OF GOD 

Conscience — Its nature — Its authority — Review of opinions respecting a 
moral sense — Bishop Butler — Lord Bacon — Lord Shaftesbury — Watts- 
Voltaire — Locke — Southey — Adam Smith — Paley — Rousseau — Milton 
— Judge Hale — Marcus Antoninus — Epictetus — Seneca — Paul — That 
every human being possesses a moral law — Pagans — Gradations of 
light — Prophecy — The immediate communication of the Divine Will 
perpetual — Of national vices : Infanticide : Duelling — Of savage life. 

The reader is solicited to approach this subject with that 
mental seriousness which its nature requires. Whatever be 
his opinions upon the subject, whether he believes in the 
reality of such communication or not, he ought not even to 
think respecting it but with f&elings of seriousness. 

In endeavouring to investigate this reality, it becomes espe- 
cially needful to distinguish the communication of the Will 
of God from those mental phenomena with which it has very 
commonly been intermingled and confounded. The want of 
this distinction has occasioned a confusion which has been 
greatly injurious to the cause of truth. It has occasioned 
great obscurity of opinion respecting divine instruction ; and 
by associating error with truth, has frequently induced scep- 
ticism respecting the truth itself. — When an intelligent person 
perceives that infallible truth or divine authority is described 
as belonging to the dictates of " Conscience," and when he 
perceives, as he must perceive, that these dictates are various 
and sometimes contradictory ; he is in danger of concluding 
that no unerring and no divine guidance is accorded to man. 

Upon this serious subject it is therefore peculiarly neces- 
sary to endeavour to attain distinct ideas, and to employ those 
words only which convey distinct ideas to other men. The 
first section of the present chapter will accordingly be devoted 
to some brief observations respecting the Conscience, its na- 
ture, and its authority ; by which it is hoped the reader will 
see sufficient reason to distinguish its dictates from that higher 
guidance, respecting which it is the object of the present 
chapter to enquire. 

For a kindred purpose, it appears requisite to offer a short 
review of popular and philosophical opinions respecting a 
Moral Sense. These opinions will be found to have been 
frequently expressed in great indistinctness and ambiguity of 
language. The purpose of the writer in referring to these 



CKAP. VI.] 



OF THE WILL OF GOD, 



55 



opinions, is to enquire whether they do not generally involve 
a recognition — obscurely perhaps, but still a recognition — of 
the principle, that God communicates his will to the mind. 
If they do this, and if they do it without design or conscious- 
ness, no trifling testimony is afforded to the truth of the prin- 
ciple : for how should this principle thus secretly recommend 
itself to the minds of men, except by the influence of its own 
evidence ? 



SECTION I. 
CONSCIENCE, ITS NATURE AND AUTHORITY. 

In the attempt to attach distinct notions to the term " Con- 
science," we have to request the reader not to estimate the 
accuracy of our observations by the notions which he may 
have habitually connected with the word. Our disquisition 
is not about terms but truths. If the observations are in them- 
selves just, our principal object is attained. The secondary 
object, that of connecting truth with appropriate terms, is only 
so far attainable by a writer, as shall be attained by an uni- 
form employment of words in determinate senses in his own 
practice. 

Men possess notions of right and wrong ; they possess a 
belief that, under given circumstances, they ought to do one 
thing or to forbear another. This belief I would call a con- 
scientious belief. And when such a belief exists in a man's 
mind in reference to a number of actions, I would call the 
sum or aggregate of his notions respecting what is right and 
wrong, his Conscience. . » 

To possess notions of right and wrong in human conduct — 
to be convinced that we ought to do or to forbear an action — 
implies and supposes a sense of obligation existent in the 
mind. A man who feels that it is wrong for him to do a 
thing, possesses a sense of obligation to refrain. Into the 
origin of this sense of obligation, or how it is induced into the 
mind, we do not enquire : it is sufficient for our purpose that 
it exists ; and there is no reason to doubt that its existence is 
consequent of the will of God. ♦ 

In most men — perhaps in all — the sense of obligation re- 
fers, with greater or less distinctness, to the will of a supe- 
rior being. The impression, however obscure, is, in gene- 



56 



THE IMMEDIATE COMMUNICATION [ESSAY I. 



ral, fundamentally this : I must do so or so, because God 
requires it. 

It is found that this sense of obligation is sometimes con- 
nected, in the minds of separate individuals, with different 
actions. One man thinks he ought to do a thing from which 
another thinks he ought to forbear. Upon the great questions 
of morality there is indeed, in general, a congruity of human 
judgment ; yet subjects do arise respecting which one man's 
conscience dictates an act different from that which is dic- 
tated by another's. It is not therefore essential to a con- 
" scientious judgment of right and wrong, that that judgment 
should be in strict accordance with the Moral Law. Some 
men's consciences dictate that which the Moral Law does 
not enjoin ; and this law enjoins some points which are not 
enforced by every man's conscience. This is precisely the 
result which, from the nature of the case, it is reasonable to 
expect. Of these judgments respecting what is right, with 
which the sense of obligation becomes from time to time con- 
nected, some are induced by the instructions or example of 
others ; some by our own reflection or enquiry ; some per- 
haps from the written law of revelation ; and some, as we 
have cause to conclude, from the direct intimations of the Di- 
vine Will. 

It is manifest that if the sense of obligation is sometimes 
connected with subjects that are proposed to us merely by 
the instruction of others, or if the connexion results from the 
power of association and habit, or from the fallible investiga- 
tions of our own minds — that sense of obligation will be con- 
nected, in different individuals, with different subjects. So 
that it may sometimes happen that a man can say, I con- 
scientiously think I ought to do a certain action, and yet 
that his neighbour, can say, I conscientiously think the con- 
trary. " With respect to particular actions, opinion deter- 
• mines whether they are good or ill ; and Conscience approves, 
or disapproves, in consequence of this determination, whether 
it be in favour of truth or falsehood."* 

Such considerations enable us to account for the diversity 
of the dictates of the conscience in individuals respectively. 
A person is brought up amongst Catholics, and is taught from 
his childhood that flesh ought not to be eaten in Lent. The 
arguments of those around him, or perhaps their authority, 
^satisfy him that what he is taught is truth. The sense of obli- 
gation thus becomes connected with a refusal to eat flesh in 

* Adventurer ; No. 91. 



CHAP. VI.] 



OF THE WILL OF GOD. 



• 57 



Lent ; and thenceforth he says that the abstinence is dictated 
by his conscience. A Protestant youth is taught the con- 
trary. Argument or authority satisfies him that flesh may 
lawfully be eaten every day in the year. His sense of obli- 
gation therefore is not connected with the abstinence ; and 
thenceforth he says that eating flesh in Lent does not violate 
his conscience. And so of a multitude of other questions. 

When therefore a person says, my conscience dictates to 
me that I ought to perform such an action, he means — or in 
the use of such language he ought to mean — that the sense 
of obligation which subsists in his mind is connected with 
that action ; that, so far as his judgment is enlightened, it is 
a requisition of the law of God. 

But not all our opinions respecting morality and religion 
are derived from education or reasoning. He who finds in 
Scripture the precept, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy- 
self," derives an opinion respecting the duty of loving others 
from the discovery of this expression of the Will of God. 
His sense of obligation is connected with benevolence to- 
wards others in consequence of this discovery ; or, in other 
words, his understanding has been informed by the Moral 
Law, and a new duty is added to those which are dictated by 
his conscience. Thus it is that Scripture, by informing the 
judgment, extends the jurisdiction of conscience ; and it is 
hence, in part, that in those who seriously study the Scrip- 
tures, the conscience appears so much more vigilant and 
operative than in many who do not possess, or do not regard 
them. Many of the mistakes which education introduces, 
many of the fallacies to which our own speculations lead us, 
are corrected by this law. In the case of our Catholic, if a 
reference to Scripture should convince him that the judgment 
he has formed respecting abstinence from flesh is not founded 
on the Law of God, the sense of obligation becomes detached 
from its subject ; and thenceforth his conscience ceases to 
dictate that he should abstain from flesh in Lent. Yet Scrip- 
ture does not decide every question respecting human duty, 
and in some instances individuals judge differently of the de- 
cisions which Scripture gives. This, again, occasions some 
diversity in the dictates of the Conscience ; it occasions the 
sense of obligation to become connected with dissimilar, and 
possibly incompatible, actions. 

But another portion of men's judgments respecting moral 
affairs is derived from immediate intimations of the Divine 
Will. (This we must be allowed for the present to assume.) 
These intimations inform sometimes the judgment; correct 



58 



THE IMMEDIATE COMMUNICATION [ESSAY I. 



its mistakes ; and increase and give distinctness to our know- 
ledge — thus operating, as the Scriptures operate, to connect 
the sense of obligation more accurately with those actions 
which are conformable with the Will of God. It does not, 
however, follow, by any sort of necessity, that this higher in- 
struction must correct, all the mistakes of the judgment ; that 
because it imparts some light, that light must be perfect day ; 
that because it communicates some moral or religious truth, 
it must communicate all the truths of religion and morality. 
Nor, again, does it follow that individuals must each receive 
the same access of knowledge. It is evidently as possible 
that it should be communicated in different degrees to dif- 
ferent individuals, as that it should be communicated at all. 
For which plain reasons we are still to expect, what in fact 
we find, that although the judgment receives light from a 
superhuman intelligence, the degree of that light varies in in- 
dividuals ; and that the sense of obligation is connected with 
fewer subjects, and attended with less accuracy, in the minds 
of some men than of others. 

With respect to the authority which properly belongs to 
Conscience as a director of individual conduct, it appears 
manifest, alike from reason and from Scripture, that it is great. 
When a man believes, upon due deliberation, that a certain 
action is right, that action is right to him. And this is true, 
whether the action be or be not required of mankind by the 
Moral Law.* The fact that in his mind the sense of obligation 
attaches to the act, and that he has duly deliberated upon the 
accuracy of his judgment, makes the dictate of his Conscience 
upon that subject an authoritative dictate. The individual is 
to be held guilty if he violates his Conscience — if he does 
one thing, whilst his sense of obligation is directed to its con- 
trary. Nor, if his judgment should not be accurately informed, 
if his sense of obligation should not be connected with a proper 
subject, is the guilt of violating his Conscience taken away. 
Were it otherwise, a person might be held virtuous for acting 
in opposition to his apprehensions of duty ; or guilty, for 
doing what he believed to be right. " It is happy for us that 
our title to the character of virtuous beings, depends not upon 
the justness of our opinions or the constant objective rectitude 
of all we do, but upon the conformity of our actions to the sin- 
cere convictions of our minds. "f Dr. Furneaux says, "To 
secure the favour of God and the rewards of true religion, we 

* " By Conscience all men are restrained from intentional ill — it infal- 
libly directs us to avoid guilt, but is not intended to secure us from error." 
—Advent. No. 91. t Dr. Price. 



CHAP. VI.] 



OF THE WILL OF GOD. 



59 



must follow our own consciences and judgments according to 
the best light we can attain."* And I am especially disposed 
to add the testimony of Sir William Temple, because he re- 
cognizes the doctrine which has just been advanced, that our 
judgments are enlightened by superhuman agency. " The 
way to our future happiness must be left, at last, to the im- 
pressions made upon every maris belief and conscience either 
by natural or supernatural arguments and means. "f — Accord- 
ingly there appears no reason to doubt that some will stand 
convicted in the sight of the Omniscient Judge, for actions 
which his Moral Law has not forbidden : and ^jjiat some may 
be uncondemned for actions which that law does not allow. 
The distinction here is the same as that to which we have 
before had occasion to allude, between the desert of the agent 
and the quality of the act. Of this distinction an illustration 
is contained in Isaiah x. It was the divine will that a cer- 
tain specific course of action should be pursued in punishing 
the Israelites. For the performance of this, the king of As- 
syria was employed : — " I will give him a charge to take the 
spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the 
mire of the streets." This charge the Assyrian monarch ful- 
filled ; he did the will of God ; but then his intention was 
criminal ; he " meant not so :" and therefore, when the " whole 
work" is performed, " I will punish" says the Almighty, " the 
fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory 
of his high looks." 

But it was said that these principles respecting the author- 
ity of Conscience were recognized in Scripture. " One be- 
lieveth that he may eat all things : another who is weak eateth 
herbs. One man esteemeth one day above another : another 
esteemeth every day alike." Here, then, are differences, 
nay, contrarieties of conscientious judgments. And what are 
the parties directed severally to do 1 — " Let every -man be 
fully persuaded in his own mind ;" that is, let the full persua- 
sion of his own mind be every man's rule of action. The 
situation of these parties was, that one perceived the truth 
upon the subject, and the other did not ; that in one the sense 
of obligation was connected with an accurate, in the other 
with an inaccurate, opinion. Thus, again : — " / know, and 
am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing un- 
clean of itself ;" therefore, absolutely speaking, it is lawful to 
eat all things ; " but to him that esteemeth any thing to be un- 
clean, to him it is unclean." The question is not, whether 



* Essay on Toleration, p. 8. 



t Works: v. l.p. 55. f. 1740. 



/ 



60 THE IMMEDIATE COMMUNICATION [ESSAY I. 

his judgment was correct, but what that judgment actually 
was. To the doubter, the uncle anness, that is, the sin of eat- 
ing, was certain, though the act was right. Again : "All things 
indeed are pure ; but it is evil for that man who eateth with 
offence." And, again, as a general rule : " He that doubteth 
is condemned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith; for 
whatsoever is not of faith is sin."* 

And here we possess a sufficient answer to those who 
affect to make light of the authority of Conscience, and ex- 
claim, " Every man pleads his conscientious opinions, and 
that he is bound in conscience to do this or that ; and yet his 
neighbour makes the same plea and urges the same obligation 
to do just the contrary. But what then ? These persons' 
judgments differed : that we might expect, for they are falli- 
ble ; but their sense of obligation was, in each case, really 
attached to its subject, and was in each case authoritative. 

One observation remains ; that although a man ought to 
make his conduct conform to his conscience, yet he may 
sometimes justly be held criminal for the errors of his opinion. 
Men often judge amiss respecting their duties in consequence 
of their own faults : some take little pains to ascertain the 
truth ; some voluntarily exclude knowledge ; and most men 
would possess more accurate perceptions of the Moral Law 
if they sufficiently endeavoured to obtain them. And, there- 
fore, although a man may not be punished for a given act 
which he ignorantly supposes to be lawful, he may be pun- 
ished for that ignorance in which his supposition originates. 
Which consideration may perhaps account for the expression, 
that he who ignorantly failed to do his master's will " shall 
be beaten with few stripes." There is a degree of wicked- 
ness, to the agents of which God at length " sends strong de- 
lusion" that they may " believe a lie." In this state of strong 
delusion they perhaps may, without violating any sense of 
obligation, do many wicked actions. The principles which 
have been here delivered would lead us to suppose that the 
punishment which awaits such men will have respect rather 
to that intensity of wickedness of which delusion was the 
consequence, than to those particular acts which they might 
ignorantly commit under the influence of the delusion itself. 
This observation is offered to the reader because some writers 
have obscured the present subject by speculating upon the 
moral deserts of those desperately bad men, who occasionally 
have committed atrocious acts under the notion that they were 
doing right. 

* Rom. xiv. 



CHAP. VI.] 



OF THE WILL OF GOD. 



6i 



Let us then, when we direct our serious enquiry to the 
Immediate Communication of the Divine Will, carefully dis- 
tinguish that Communication from the dictates of the con- 
science. They are separate and distinct considerations. It 
is obvious that those positions which some persons advance ; 
— " Conscience is our infallible guide," — " Conscience is the 
voice of the Deity," &c, are wholly improper and inadmissi- 
ble. The term may indeed have been employed synonymously 
for the voice of God : but this ought never to be done. It is 
to induce confusion of language respecting a subject which 
ought always to be distinctly exhibited ; and the necessity 
for avoiding ambiguity is so much the greater, as the conse- 
quences of that ambiguity are more serious : it is obvious 
that, on these subjects, inaccuracy of language gives rise to 
serious error of opinion. 

REVIEW OF OPINIONS RESPECTING A MORAL SENSE. 

The purpose for which this brief review is offered to the 
reader, is explained in very few words. It is to enquire, by 
a reference to the written opinions of many persons, whether 
they do not agree in asserting that our Creator communicates 
some portions of his Moral Law immediately to the human 
mind. These opinions are frequently delivered, as the reader 
will presently discover, in great ambiguity of language ; but 
in the midst of this ambiguity there appears to exist one per- 
vading truth — a truth in testimony to which these opinions 
are not the less satisfactory because, in some instances, the 
testimony is undesigned. The reader is requested to observe, 
as he passes on, whether many of the difficulties which en- 
quirers have found or made, are not solved by the supposition 
of a divine communication, and whether they can be solved 
by any other. 

" The Author of nature has much better furnished us for a 
virtuous conduct than our moralists seem to imagine, by al- 
most as quick and powerful instructions as we have for the 
preservation of our bodies."* 

" It is manifest, great part of common language and of 
common behaviour over the world, is formed upon the sup- 
position of a moral faculty, whether called conscience, moral 
reason, moral sense, or divine reason ; whether considered 
as a sentiment of the understanding, or as a perception of the 
heart, or, which seems the truth, as including both."f Is it 

* Dr. Hutcheson : Enquiry concerning Moral Good and Evil, 
t Bishop Butler : Enquiry on Virtue. 

6 



62 



THE IMMEDIATE COMMUNICATION [ESSAY I. 



not remarkable that for a " faculty" so well known " over the 
world," even a name has not been found, and that a Christian 
bishop accumulates a multiplicity of ambiguous epithets to 
explain his meaning ? Bishop Butler says again of Conscience, 
" To preside and govern, from the very economy and consti- 
tution of man, belongs to it. This faculty was placed within 
to be our proper governor, to direct and regulate all undue 
principles, passions, and motives of action. — It carries its 
own authority with it, that it is our natural guide, the guide 
assigned us by the Author of our nature." Would it have 
been unreasonable to conclude, that there was at least some 
connexion between this reprover of " all undue principles, 
passions, and motives," and that law of which the New Tes- 
tament speaks, " All things that are reproved are made mani- 
fest by the light ?"* 

Blair says, " Conscience is felt to act as the delegate of an 
invisible Ruler ;" — " Conscience is the guide, or the enlight- 
ening or directing principle of our conduct."! In this in- 
stance, as in many others, Conscience appears to be used in 
an indeterminate sense. Conscience is not an enlightening 
principle, but a principle which is enlightened. It is not a 
legislator, but a repository of statutes. Yet the reader will 
perceive the fundamental truth, that man is in fact illuminated, 
and illuminated by an invisible Ruler. In the thirteenth ser- 
mon there is an expression more distinct : " God has invested 
Conscience with authority to promulgate his laws." It is 
obvious that the Divine Being must have communicated his 
laws, before they could have been promulgated by Conscience. 
In accordance with which the author says in another place, 
" Under the- tuition of God let us put ourselves." — " A Hea- 
venly Conductor vouchsafes his aid." — " Divine light de- 
scends to guide our steps. "| It were to be wished that such 
sentiments were not obscured by propositions like these : " A 
sense of right and wrong in conduct, or of moral good and 
evil, belongs to human nature" — " Such sentiments are coeval 
with human nature ; for they are the remains of a law which 
was originally written in our he art. 

I do not know whether the reader will be able to perceive 
with distinctness the ideas of Lord Bacon and of Dr. Rush 
in the following quotations, but I think he will perceive that 
they involve a recognition— obscure and indeterminate, but 
still a recognition — of the doctrine, that the Deity communi- 
cates his laws to the minds of men. Dr. Rush says, " It 

* Eph. v. 13. t Sermons. + Sermon 7. § Sermon 13. 



CHAP. VI.] 



OF THE WILL OF GOD. 



63 



would seem as if the Supreme Being had preserved the Moral 
Faculty in man from the ruins of his fall, on purpose to guide 
him back again to paradise ; and at the same time had consti- 
tuted the Conscience, both in man and fallen spirits, a kind of 
royalty in his moral empire, on purpose to show his property 
in all intelligent creatures, and their original resemblance to 
himself." And Lord Bacon says, " The light of nature not 
only shines upon the human mind through the medium of a ra- 
tional faculty, but by an internal instinct according to the law 
of conscience, which is a sparkle of the purity of man's first 
estate." 

" The faculties of our minds are so formed by nature, that 
as soon as we begin to reason, we may also begin, in some 
measure to distinguish good from evil." — " We prefer virtue 
to vice on account of the seeds planted in us."* 

The following is not the less worthy notice because it is 
from the pen of Lord Shaftesbury : " Sense of right and 
wrong, being as natural to us as natural affection itself, and 
being a first principle in our constitution and make, there is 
no speculation, opinion, persuasion, or belief, which is capa- 
ble, immediately or directly, to exclude or destroy it."f Sen- 
timents such as these are very commonly expressed ; and 
what do they imply ? If sense of right and wrong is natural 
to us, it is because He who created us has placed it in our 
minds. The conclusion too is inevitable, that this sense 
must indicate the Divine Law by which right and wrong are 
discriminated. Now we do not say that these sentiments 
are absolutely just, or that a sense of right and wrong is 
strictly "natural" to man, but we say that the sentiments 
involve the supposition of some mode of Divine Guidance — 
some mode in which the Moral Law of God, or a part of it, 
is communicated by him to mankind. And if this be indeed 
true, it may surely, with all reason, be asked, why we should 
not assent to the reality of that mode of communication, of 
which, as we shall hereafter see, Christianity asserts the 
existence 1 

" The first principles of morals are the immediate dictates 
of the moral faculty." — " By the moral faculty, or conscience, 
solely, we have the original conception of right and wrong." 
• — " It is evident that this principle has, from its nature, au- 
thority to direct and determine with regard to our conduct ; 
to judge, to acquit or condemn, and even to punish ; an author- 
ity which belongs to no other principle of the human mind." 



* John Le Clerc. 



t Characteristics. 



64 



THE IMMEDIATE COMMUNICATION 



[ESSAY I. 



— " The Supreme Being has given us this light within to 
direct our moral conduct. "— " It is the candle of the Lord, 
set up within us to guide our steps."* This is almost the 
language of Christianity, " That was the true Light, which 
lighteth every man that cometh into the world. "f I do not 
mean to affirm that the author of the essays speaks exclusively 
of the same Divine Guidance as the apostle ; but surely, if 
Conscience operates as such a " light within," as " the candle 
of the Lord," it can require no reasoning to convince us that 
it is illuminated from heaven. The indistinctness of notions 
which such language exhibits, appears to arise from inaccu- 
rate views of the nature of Conscience. The writer does 
not distinguish between the recipient and the source ; between 
the enlightened principle and the enlightening beam. The 
apostle speaks only of the last ; the uninspired enquirer 
speaks, without discrimination, of both and hence the am- 
biguity. 

Dr. Beattie appears to maintain the same general principle, 
the same essential truth, under other phraseology. Common 
sense, he says, is "that power of the mind which perceives 
truth or commands belief by an instantaneous, instinctive, and 
irresistible impulse, neither derived from education nor from 
habit, but from nature."" — " Every man may find the evidence 
of moral science in his own breast." An " instinctive" per- 
ception of truth derived from nature, must necessarily be tan- 
tamount to a power of perception imparted by the Deity. 
" Whatsoever nature does, God does," says Seneca : and Dr 
Beattie himself explains his own meaning — " The dictates 
of nature, that is, the voice of God."! We have no concern 
with the justness of Beattie's philosophy, intellectual or moral, 
but the reader will perceive the recognition of the truth, or 
of something like the truth, to which we have so often referred. 

" What is the power within us that perceives the distinc- 
tions of right and wrong ? My answer is, The Understanding." 
— " Of every thought, sentiment, and subject, the Understand- 
ing is the natural and ultimate judge." This is the language 
of Dr. Price, but he does not seem wholly satisfied with his 
own definition. He says, " The truth seems to be, that in 
contemplating the actions of moral agents, we have both a 
perception of the understanding, and a feeling of the heart." 
And again, " It is to intuition that we owe our moral ideas." 
He speaks too of " the virtuous principle," — " the inward 
spring of virtue ; and says, " Goodness is the power of re- 

* Dr. Iteid : Essays on the Powers of the Human Mind, Essay 3. c. 8. &-C. 
t John i. 9. t 'Essay on Truth. 



CHAP. VI.] 



OF THE WILL OF GOD. 



65 



flection, raised to its due seat of direction and sovereignty in 
the mind." These various expressions do not appear to re- 
present very distinct notions, but' after the " Understanding" 
has been stated to be the ultimate judge, we are presented 
with the idea of Conscience, and then we perceive in Dr. 
Price's language, that which we find in the language of so 
many others, " Whatever our Consciences dictate to us, that 
He, (the Deity,) commands more evidently and undeniably, 
than if by a voice from heaven we had been called upon to do it"* 

Dr. Watts says that the mind " contains in it the plain and 
general principles of morality, not explicitly as propositions, 
but only as native principles, by which it judges, and cannot 
but judge, virtue to be fit and vice unfit. "f 

And Dr. Cudworth : " The anticipations of morality do not 
spring merely from notional ideas, or from certain rules or 
propositions arbitrarily printed upon the soul as upon a book, 
but from some other more inward and vital principle in intel- 
lectual beings as such, whereby they have a natural determi- 
nation in them to do some things and to avoid others. "| 

Voltaire in his Commentary on Beccaria§ says, " I call 
natural laws those which nature dictates, in all ages, to all 
men, for the maintenance of that Justice which she, (say what 
they will of her,) hath implanted in our hearts." 

" And this law is that innate sense of right and wrong, of 
virtue and vice, which every man carries in his own bosom." 
— " These impressions, operating on the mind of man, be- 
speak a law written on his heart." — " This secret sense of 
right and wrong, for wise purposes so deeply implanted by 
our Creator on the human mind, has the nature, force, and 
effect of a law."j| 

Locke : " The Divine law, that law which God has set to 
the actions of men, whether promulgated to them by the light 
of nature or the voice of revelation, is the measure of sin and 
duty. That God has given a rule whereby men should gov- 
ern themselves, I think there is nobody so brutish as to 
deny."^[ The reader should remark, that revelation and " the 
light of nature" are here represented as being jointly and 
equally the law of God. 

" Actions, then, instead of being tried by the eternal stand- 
ard of right and wrong, on which the unsophisticated heart 
unerringly pronounces, were judged by the rules of a perni- 

* Review of Principal Questions in Morals. t Philosophical Essays. 
X Eternal and Immutable Morality. 
§ Crimes and Punishments, Com. c. 14. 

II Dr. Shepherd's Discourse on Future Existence. t Essay, b. 2, c. 28. 
6* 



66 



THE IMMEDIATE COMMUNICATION [ESSAY I. 



cious casuistry."* This may not be absolutely true ; but 
there must be some truth which it is like, or such a proposi- 
tion would not be advanced. Who ever thought of attribu- 
ting to the unsophisticated heart the power of unerringly 
pronouncing on questions of prudence ? Yet questions of right 
and wrong are not, in their own nature, more easily solved 
than those of prudence. 

" Boys do not listen to sermons. They need not be told 
what is right ; like men, they all know their duty sufficiently ; 
the grand difficulty is to practise it."f Neither may this be 
true ; and it is not true. But upon what species of knowledge 
would any writer think of affirming that boys need not be in- 
structed, except upon the single species, the knowledge of 
duty ? And how should they know this without instruction, 
unless their Creator has taught them ? 

Dr. Rush exhibits the same views in a more determinate 
form : " Happily for the human race, the intimations of duty 
and the road to happiness are not left to the slow operations 
or doubtful inductions of reason. It is worthy of notice, that 
while second thoughts are best in matters of judgment, first 
thoughts are always to be preferred in matters that relate to 
morality ."J 

Adam Smith : " It is altogether absurd and unintelligible, 
to suppose that the first perceptions of right and wrong can be 
derived from reason. These first perceptions cannot be the 
object of .reason, but of immediate sense and feeling." — 
" Though man has been rendered the immediate judge of man- 
kind, an appeal lies from his sentence to a much higher tri- 
bunal, to the tribunal of their own Consciences, to that of the 
man within the breast, the great judge and arbiter of their 
conduct." In some cases in which censure is violently poured 
upon us, the judgments of the man within, are, however, much 
shaken in the steadiness and firmness of their decision. " In 
such cases, this demigod within the breast appears, like the 
demigods of the poets, though partly of immortal, yet, partly, 
too, of mortal extraction." Our moral faculties " were set up 
within us to be the supreme arbiters of all our actions." " The 
rules which they prescribe are to be regarded as the com- 
mands and laws of the Deity, promulgated by those vice- 
gerents which he has thus set up within us." " Some ques- 
tions must be left altogether to the decision of the man within 
the breast." And let the reader mark what follows : " If we 
" listen with diligent and reverential attention to what he sug- 

* Dr. Southey : Book of the Church, c. 10. t West. Rev. No. 1. 
X Influence of Physical Causes on the Moral Faculty. 



CHAP VI.] 



OF THE WILL OF GOD. 



67 



gests to us, his voice will never deceive us. We shall stand 
in no need of casuistic rules to direct our conduct.' 1 How 
wonderful that such a man, who uses almost the language of 
Scripture, appears not even to have thought of the truth — 
" the Anointing which ye have received of him abideth in 
you, and ye need not that any man teach you !" for he does 
not appear to have thought of it. He intimates that this vice- 
gerent of God, this undeceiving teacher to whom we are to 
listen with reverential attention, is some " contrivance or 
mechanism within ;" and says that to examine what contriv- 
ance or mechanism it is, " is a mere matter of philosophical 
curiosity."* 

A matter of philosophical curiosity, Dr. PMey seems to have 
thought a kindred enquiry to be. He discusses the question, 
whether there is such a thing as a Moral Sense or not ; and 
thus sums up the argument : " Upon the whole it seems to 
me, either that there exist no such instincts as compose what 
is called the moral sense, or that they are not now to be dis- 
tinguished from prejudices and habits." — "This celebrated 
question therefore becomes, in our system, a question of pure 
curiosity ; and as such, we dismiss it to the determination of 
those who are more inquisitive than we are concerned to be, 
about the natural history and constitution of the human spe- 
cies."! But in another work, a work in which he did not 
bind himself to the support of a philosophical system, he holds 
other language : " Conscience, our own Conscience, is to be 
our guide in all things." " It is through the whisperings of 
Conscience that the Spirit roeaks. If men are wilfully deaf 
to their Consciences they cannot hear the Spirit. If, hearing, 
if being compelled to hear the remonstrances of Conscience, 
they nevertheless decide and resolve and determine to go 
against them, then they grieve, then they defy, then they do 
despite to; the Spirit of God." " Is it superstition ? Is it not 
on the contrary a just and reasonable piety to implore of God 
the guidance of his Holy Spirit, when we have any thing of 
great importance to decide upon or undertake ?" — " It being 
confessed that we cannot ordinarily distinguish, at the time, 
the suggestions of the Spirit from the operations of our minds, 
it may be asked, How are we to listen to them ? The answer 
is, by attending, universally, to the admonitions within us. "J 
The tendency of these quotations to enforce our general ar- 
gument, is plain and powerful. But the reader should notice 
here another and a very interesting consideration. Paley 

* Theory of Mor. Sent. t Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 1, c 5. t Sermons. 



68 THE IMMEDIATE COMMUNICATION. [ESSAY I. 

says, " Our own Conscience is to be our guide in all things." 
— We are to attend universally to the admonitions within us. 
Now he writes a book of moral philosophy, that is, a book that 
shall " teach men their duty and the reasons of it," and from 
this book he absolutely excludes this law which men should 
universally obey, this law which should be their " guide in all 
things." 

" Conscience, Conscience," exclaims Rousseau in his Pen- 
sees, " Divine Instinct, Immortal and Heavenly Voice, sure 
Guide of a being ignorant and limited but intelligent and free, 
infallible Judge of good and evil, by which man is made like 
unto God!" Here are attributes which, if they be justly 
assigned, certainTy cannot belong to humanity ; or if they do 
belong to humanity, an apostle certainly could not be accurate 
when he said that in us, that is in our flesh, " dvjelleth no good 
thing.' 1 '' Another observation of Rousseau's is worth transcrib- 
ing : " Our own conscience is the most enlightened philo- 
sopher. There is no need to be acquainted with Tully's 
Offices to make a man of probity ; and perhaps the most vir- 
tuous woman in the world is the least acquainted with the de- 
finition of virtue." 

" And I will place within them as a guide, 
My Umpire, Conscience ; whom if they will near 
Light after light, well used, they shall attain."* 

This is the language of Milton ; and we have, thus his tes- 
timony added to the many, that God has placed within us an 
Umpire which shall pronounce, His own laws in our hearts. 
Thus in his " Christian Doctrin^' more clearly : " They can 
lay claim to nothing more than human powers, assisted by 
that spiritual illumination which is common to all."\ 

Judge Hale : " Any man that sincerely and truly fears Al- 
mighty God, and calls and relies upon him for his. direction, 
has it as really as a son has the counsel and direction of his 
father ; and though the voice be not audible nor discernible 
by sense, yet it is equally as real as if a man heard a voice 
saying, " This is the way, walk in it." 

The sentiments of the ancient philosophers, Sic, should 
not be forgotten, and the rather because their language is fre- 
quently much more distinct and satisfactory than that of the 
refined enquirers of the present day. 

Marcus Antoninus : " He who is well disposed will do 
every thing dictated by the divinity — a particle or portion of 
Himself, which God has given to each as a guide and a leader "\ 

* Par. Lost, iii. 194. t P. 81. t Lib. 5, Sect. 27. 



CHAP. VI.] 



OF THE WILL OF GOD. 



69 



Aristotle : " The mind of man hath a near affinity to God : 
there is a divine ruler in him..'''' — Plutarch : " The light of 
truth is a law, not written in tables or books but dwelling in 
the mind, always as a living rule which never permits the 
soul to be destitute of an interior guide." — Hieron says that 
the universal light, shining in the Conscience, is " a domestic 
God, a God within the hearts and souls of men." — Epictetus : 
" God has assigned to each man a director, his own good ge- 
nius, a guardian whose vigilance no slumbers interrupt, and 
whom no false reasonings can deceive. So that when you 
have shut your door, say not that you are alone, for your God 
is within. — What need have you of outward light to discover 
what is done, or to. light to good actions, who have God or that 
genius or divine principle for your light ?"* Such citations 
might be greatly multiplied ; but one more must suffice. Sen- 
eca says, " We find felicity — in a pure and untainted mind, 
which if it were not holy were not fit to entertain the Deity? 
How like the words of an apostle ! — " If any man defile the 
temple of God, him shall God destroy ; for the temple of God 
is holy, which temple ye are."f The philosopher again: 
" There is a holy spirit in us ;"| and again the apostle : " Know 
ye not that" the " Spirit of God dwelleth in you ?"§ 

Now respecting the various opinions which have been laid 
before the reader, there is one observation that will generally 
apply — that they unite in assigning certain important attributes 
or operations to some principle or power existent in the hu- 
man mind. They affirm that this principle or power possesses 
wisdom to direct us aright — that its directions are given in- 
stantaneously as the individual needs them — that it is insepa- 
rably attended with unquestionable authority to command. 
That such a principle or power does, therefore, actually exist, 
can need little further proof ; for a concurrent judgment upon 
a question of personal experience cannot surely be incorrect. 
To say that individuals express their notions of this principle 
or power by various phraseology, that they attribute to it dif- 
ferent degrees of superhuman intelligence, or that they refer 
for its origin to contradictory causes, does not affect the gen- 
eral argument. The great point for our attention is, not the 
designation or the supposed origin of this guide, but its attri- 
butes ; and these attributes appear to be divine. 



* Lib. 1, c. 14. 

t De Benef. c. 17, &c. 



t 1 Cor. iii. 17. 
§ 1 Cor. iii. 16. 



70 



THE IMMEDIATE COMMUNICATION 



[ESSAY I. 



THE IMMEDIATE COMMUNICATION OF THE WILL OF GOD. 

I. That every reasonable human being is a moral agent — 
that is, that every such human being is responsible to God, no 
one perhaps denies. There can be no responsibility where 
there is no knowledge : " Where there is no law there is no 
transgression." So then every human being possesses, or is 
furnished with, moral knowledge and a moral law. " If we 
admit that mankind, without an outward revelation, are never- 
theless sinners, we must also admit that mankind, without 
such a revelation, are nevertheless in possession of the law 
of God."* 

Whence then do they obtain it ? — a question to which but 
one answer can be given ; from the Creator himself. It ap- 
pears therefore to be almost demonstratively shown, that God 
does communicate his will immediately to the minds of those 
who have no access to the external expression of it. It is 
always to be remembered that, as the majority of mankind do 
not possess the written communication of the will of God, the 
question, as it respects them, is between an Immediate Com- 
munication and none ; between such a communication, and 
the denial of their responsibility in a future state ; between 
such a communication, and the reducing them to the condition 
of the beasts that perish. 

II. No one perhaps will imagine that this argument is con- 
fined to countries which the external light of Christianity has 
not reached. " Whoever expects to find in the Scriptures 
a specific direction for every moral doubt jthat arises, looks 
for more than he will meet with ;"f so that even in Christian 
countries there exists some portion of that necessity for other 
guidance, which has been seen to exist in respect to pagans. 
Thus Adam Smith says that there are some questions which 
it " is perhaps altogether impossible to determine by any pre- 
cise rules," and that they " must be left altogether to the de- 
cision of the man within the breast." — But, indeed, when we 
speak of living in Christian countries, and of having access 
to the external revelation, we are likely to mislead ourselves 
with respect to the actual condition of " Christian" people. 
Persons talk of possessing the Bible, as if every one who 
lived in a protestant country had a Bible in his pocket and 
could read it. But there are thousands, perhaps millions, in 
Christian - and in protestant countries, who know very little of 

* Gumey: Essavs on Christianity, p. 516. 
t Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 1, c. 4. 



CHAP. VI.] 



OF THE WILL OF GOD. 



71 



what Christianity enjoins. They probably do not possess the 
Scriptures, or if they do, probably cannot read them. What 
they do know they learn from others — from others who may 
be little solicitous to teach them, or to teach them aright. 
Such persons therefore are, to a considerable extent, practi- 
cally in the same situation as those who have not heard of 
Christianity, and there is therefore to them a corresponding 
need of a direct communication of knowledge from heaven. 
But if we see the need of such knowledge extending itself 
thus far, who will call in question the doctrine, that it is im- 
parted to the whole human race? 

These are offered as considerations involving an antecedent 
probability of the truth of our argument. The reader is not 
required to give his assent to it as to a dogma of which he 
can discover neither the reason nor the object. Here is pro- 
bability very strong ; here is usefulness very manifest, and very 
great ; — so that the mind may reasonably be open to the recep- 
tion of evidence, whatever Truth that evidence shall establish. 

If the written revelation were silent respecting the imme- 
diate communication of the Divine Will, that silence might 
perhaps rightly be regarded as conclusive evidence that it is 
not conveyed ; because it is so intimately connected with the 
purposes to which that revelation is directed, that scarcely 
any other explanation could be given of its silence than that 
the communication did not exist. That the Scriptures declare 
that God has communicated light and knowledge to some 
men by the immediate exertion of his own agency, admits 
not of dispute : but this it is obvious is not sufficient for our 
purpose ; and it is in the belief that they declare that God 
imparts some knowledge to all men, that we thus appeal to 
their testimony. 

Now here the reader should especially observe, that where 
the Christian Scriptures speak of the existence and influence 
of the Divine Spirit on the mind, they commonly speak of its 
higher operations ; not of its office as a moral guide, but as a 
purifier, and sanctifier, and comforter of the soul. They 
speak of it in reference to its sacred and awful operations in 
connexion with human salvation : and thus it happens that 
very many citations which, if we were writing an essay on 
religion, would be perfectly appropriate, do not possess that 
distinct and palpable application to an argument, which goes 
no further than to affirm that it is a moral guide. And yet it 
may most reasonably be remarked, that if it has pleased the 
Universal Parent thus, and for these awful purposes, to visit 
the minds of those who are obedient to his power — he will 



72 



THE IMMEDIATE COMMUNICATION [ESSAY I. 



not suffer them to be destitute of a moral guidance. The less 
must be supposed to be involved in the greater. 

Our argument does not respect the degrees of illumination 
which may be possessed, respectively, by individuals,* or in 
different ages of the world. ' There were motives, easily con- 
ceived, for imparting a greater degree of light and of power 
at the introduction of Christianity than in the present day ; 
accordingly there are many expressions in the New Testa- 
ment which speak of high degrees of light and power, and 
which, however they may affirm the general existence of a 
Divine Guidance, are not descriptive of the general nor of the 
present condition of mankind. Nevertheless, if the records 
of Christianity, in describing these greater " gifts," inform us 
that a gift, similar in its nature but without specification of 
its amount, is imparted to all men, it is sufficient. Although 
it is one thing for the Creator to impart a general capacity to 
distinguish right from wrong, and another to impart miraculous 
power ; one thing to inform his accountable creature that lying 
is evil, and another to enable him to cure a leprosy ; yet this 
afFords no reason to deny that the nature of the gift is not the 
same, or that both are not divine. " The degree of light may 
vary according as one man has a greater measure than ano- 
ther. But the light of an apostle is not one thing and the 
light of the heathen another thing, distinct in principle. 
They differ only in degree of power, distinctness, and splen- 
dour of manifestation."! 

So early as Gen. vi. there is a distinct declaration of the 
moral operation of the Deity on the human mind ; not upon 
the pious and the good, but upon those who were desperately 
wicked, so that even " every imagination of the thoughts of 
their heart was only evil continually." — " My spirit shall not 
always strive with man." Upon this passage a good and in- 
telligent man writes thus ; " Surely, if His spirit had striven 
with them until that time, until they were so desperately 
wicked, and wholly corrupted, that not only some, but every 
imagination of their hearts was evil, yes, only evil, and that 

* I am disposed to offer a simple testimony to what I believe to be a 
truth ; that even in the present day, the divine illumination and power is 
sometimes imparted to individuals in a degree much greater than is neces- 
sary for the purposes of mere moral direction ; that on subjects connected 
with their own personal condition or that of others, light is sometimes 
imparted in greater brightness and splendour than is ordinarily enjoyed by 
mankind, or than is necessary for our ordinary direction in life. 

t Hancock : Essay on Instinct, &lc, p. 2, c. 7, s. 1. I take this oppor- 
tunity of acknowledging the obligations I am under to this work, for 
many of the " Opinions" which are cited in the last section. 



CHAP. VI.] 



OF THE WILL OF GOD. 



73 



continually, we may well believe the express Scripture asser- 
tion, that < a manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man 
to profit withal.' "* 

Respecting some of the prophetical passages in the He- 
brew Scriptures, it may be observed that there appears a 
want of complete adaptation to the immediate purpose of our 
argument, because they speak of that, prospectively, which 
our argument assumes to be true retrospectively also. " After 
those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward 
parts and write it in their hearts ;"f from which the reader 
may possibly conclude that before those days no such inter- 
nal law was imparted. Yet the preceding paragraph might 
assure him of the contrary, and that the prophet indicated an 
increase rather than a commencement of internal guidance. 
Under any supposition it does not affect the argument as it 
respects the present condition of the human race ; for the pro- 
phecy is twice quoted in the Christian Scriptures, and is ex- 
pressly stated to be fulfilled. Once the prophecy is quoted 
almost at length, and in the other instance the important clause 
is retained, " I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their 
minds will I write them. "J 

" And all thy children," says Isaiah, " shall be taught of 
the Lord." Christ himself quotes this passage in illustrating 
the nature of his own religion : " It is written in the prophets, 
And they shall be all taught of God."§ 

" Thine eyes shall see thy teachers : and thine ears shall 
hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye 
in it ; when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to 
the left."|| 

The Christian Scriptures, if they be not more explicit, are 
more abundant in their testimony. Paul addresses the "foolish 
Galatians" The reader should observe their character ; for 
some Christians who acknowledge the Divine influence on 
the minds of eminently good men, are disposed to question it 
in reference to others. These foolish Galatians had turned 
again to " weak and beggarly elements," and their dignified 
instructor was afraid of them, lest he had bestowed upon 
them labour in vain. Nevertheless, to them he makes the 
solemn declaration, " God hath sent forth the Spirit of his 
Son into your hearts. "IT 

John writes a General Epistle, an epistle which was ad- 
dressed, of course, to a great variety of characters, of whom 
some, it is probable, possessed little more of the new religion 

* Job Scott's Journal, c. 1. t Jer. xxxi.33. t Heb. viii. 10 ; and x. 16. 
§ John vi. 45. || I*a. xxx. 20, 21. 1 Gal. iv. 6. 



74 



THE IMMEDIATE COMMUNICATION [ESSAY F. 



than the name. The apostle writes — " Hereby we know 
that he abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us."* 

The solemn declarations which follow are addressed to 
large numbers of recent converts, of converts whom the writer 
had been severely reproving for improprieties of conduct, for 
unchristian contentions, and even for the greater faults : " Ye 
are the temple of the living God, as God hath said, I will 
dwell in them and walk in them." — " What, know ye not that 
your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you ?"f 
" Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the 
Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? If any man defile the temple 
of God, him shall God destroy ; for the temple of God is 
holy, which temple ye are."! 

And with respect to the moral operations of this sacred 
power : — " As touching brotherly love, ye need not that I 
write unto you : for ye yourselves are taught of God to love 
one another that is, taught a duty of morality. 

Thus also : — " The Grace of God that bringeth salvation 
hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodli- 
ness and worldly .lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, 
and godly, in this present world ;"|| or in other words, teach- 
ing all men moral laws — laws both mandatory and prohibitory, 
teaching both what to do and what to avoid. 

And very distinctly : — "The manifestation of the Spirit is 
given to every man to profit withal."^ " A Light to lighten 
the Gentiles."** " I am the Light of the world."ft " The 
true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world."tt 

" When the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature 
the things contained in the law, these having not the law are 
a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law writ- 
ten in their hearts. — written, it may be asked by whom but 
by that Being who said, " I will put my law in their inward 
parts, and write it in their hearts ?"|||| 

To such evidence from the written revelation, I know of 
no other objection which can be urged than the supposition 
that this Divine instruction, though existing eighteen hundred 
years ago, does not exist now. To which it appears suffi- 
cient to reply, that it existed not only eighteen hundred years 
ago, but before the period of the Deluge ; and that the terms 
in which the Scriptures speak of it are incompatible with the 

i 

* 1 John iii. 24. t 1 Cor. vi. 19. t 1 Cor. iii. 16. 

§ 1 Thess. iv. 9. || Tit. ii. 11, 12. IT 1 Cor. xii. 7. 

** Luke ii. 32. tt John viii. 12. XX John i. 9. 

§§ Rom. ii. 14. |pj| Jer. xxxi. 33. 



CHAP. VI.] 



THE WILL OF GOD. 



75 



supposition of a temporary duration : " all taught of God :" 
" in you all :" " hath appeared unto all men :" " given to every 
man:" "every man that cometh into the world." Besides, 
there is not the most remote indication in the Christian Scrip- 
tures that this instruction would not be perpetual ; and their 
silence on such a subject, a subject involving the most sacred 
privileges of our race, must surely be regarded as positive 
evidence that this instruction would be accorded to us for ever. 



How clear soever appears to be the evidence of reason, 
that man, being universally a moral and accountable agent, 
must be possessed, universally, of a moral law ; and how dis- 
tinct soever the testimony of revelation, that he does univer- 
sally possess it — objections are still urged against its existence. 

Of these, perhaps the most popular are those which are 
founded upon the varying dictates of the % Conscience." If 
the view which we have taken of the nature and operations 
of the conscience be just, these objections will have little 
weight. That the dictates of the conscience should vary in 
individuals respectively, is precisely what, from the circum- 
stances of the case, is to be expected ; but this variation does 
not impeach the existence of that purer ray which, whether 
in less or greater brightness, irradiates the heart of man. 

I am, however, disposed here to notice the objections* that 
may be founded upon national derelictions of portions of the 
Moral Law. " There is," says Locke, " scarce that principle 
of morality to be named, or rule of virtue to be thought on, 
which is not somewhere or other slighted and condemned by 
the general fashion of whole societies of men, governed by 
practical opinions and rules of living quite opposite to 
others." — And Paley : "There is scarcely a single vice 
which, in some age or country of the world, has not been 
countenanced by public opinion : in one country it is esteemed 
an office of piety in children to sustain their aged parents, in 
another to dispatch them out of the way : suicide in one age 
of the world has been heroism, in another felony ; theft which 
is punished by most laws, by the laws of Sparta was not un- 
frequently rewarded : you shall hear duelling alternately re- 
probated and applauded according to the sex, age, or station 
of the person you converse with : the forgiveness of injuries 
and insults is accounted by one sort of people magnanimity, 
by another, meanness."! 

* Not urged specifically, perhaps, against the Divine Guidance ; but 
they will equally afford an illustration of the truth, 
t Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. £ c. 5. 



76 



THE IMMEDIATE COMMUNICATION [ESSAY I. 



Upon all which I observe, that to whatever purpose these 
reasonings are directed, they are defective in an essential 
point. They show us indeed what the external actions of 
men have been, but give no proof that these actions were con- 
formable with the secret internal judgment : and this last is 
the only important point. That a rule of virtue is " slighted 
and condemned by the general fashion" is no sort of evidence 
that those who joined in this general fashion did not still 
know that it was a rule of virtue. There are many duties 
which, in the present day, are slighted by the general fashion, 
and yet no man will stand up and say that they are not duties. 
" There is scarcely a single vice which has not been coun- 
tenanced by public opinion ;" but where is the proof that it 
has been approved by private and secret judgment ? There 
is a great deal of difference between those sentiments which 
men seem to entertain respecting their duties when they give 
expression to "public opinion," and when they rest their 
heads on their pillows in calm reflection. " Suicide in one 
age of the world has been heroism, in another felony but it 
is not every action which a man says is heroic, that he be- 
lieves is right. " Forgiveness of injuries and insults is ac- 
counted by one sort of people magnanimity, by another, mean- 
ness ;" and yet they who thus vulgarly employ the word 
meanness, do not imagine that forbearance and placability are 
really wrong. 

I have met with an example which serves to confirm me 
in the judgment, that public notions or rather public actions 
are a very equivocal evidence of the real sentiments of man- 
kind. " Can there be greater barbarity than to hurt an in- 
fant ? Its helplessness, its innocence, its amiableness, call 
forth the compassion even of an enemy. — What then should 
we imagine must be the heart of a parent who would injure 
that weakness which a furious enemy is afraid to violate ? 
Yet the exposition, that is, the murder of new-born infants, 
was a practice allowed of in almost all the States of Greece, 
even among the polite and civilized Athenians." This seems 
a strong case against us. But what were the grounds upon 
which this atrocity was defended ? — " Philosophers, instead 
of censuring, supported the horrible abuse, by far-fetched 
considerations of public utility."* 

By far-fetched considerations of public utility ! Why had 
they recourse to such arguments as these ? Because they 
found that the custom could not be reconciled with direct and 



* Theory Mor. Sent. p. 5, c. 2. 



CHAP. VI.] 



OF THE WILL OF GOD. 



77 



acknowledged rules of virtue : because they felt and knew 
that it was wrong. The very circumstance that they had 
recourse to "far-fetched arguments," is evidence that they 
were conscious that clearer and more immediate arguments 
were against them. They knew that infanticide was an im- 
moral act. 

I attach some importance to the indications which this 
class of reasoning affords of the comparative uniformity of 
human opinion, even when it is nominally discordant. One 
other illustration maybe offered from more private life. Bos- 
well in his Life of Johnson, says that he proposed the ques- 
tion to the moralist, " Whether duelling was contrary to the 
laws of Christianity Let the reader notice the essence of 
the reply : " Sir, as men become in a high degree refined, 
various causes of offence arise which are considered to be of 
such importance that life must be staked to atone for them, 
though in reality they are not so. In a state of highly-pol- 
ished society, an affront is held to be a serious injury. It 
must therefore be resented, or rather a duel must be fought 
upon it, as men have agreed to banish from their society one 
who puts up with an affront without fighting a duel. Now, 
Sir, it is never unlawful to fight in self-defence. He then 
who fights a duel, does not fight from passion against his an- 
tagonist, but out of self-defence, to avert the stigma of the 
world, and to prevent himself from being driven from society. 
— While such notions prevail, no doubt a man may lawfully 
fight a duel." The question was, the consistency of duelling 
with the laws of Christianity ; and there is not a word about 
Christianity in the reply. Why 1 Because its laws can never 
be shown to allow duelling; and Johnson doubtless knew 
this. Accordingly, like the philosophers who tried to justify 
the kindred crime of infanticide, he had recourse to H far- 
fetched considerations,"- — to the high polish of society — to 
the stigma of the world — to the notions that prevail. Now, 
whilst the readers of Boswell commonly think they have 
Johnson's authority in favour of duelling, I think they have 
his authority against it. I think that the mode in which he 
justified duelling, evinced his consciousness that it was not 
compatible with the Moral Law. 

And thus it is, that with respect to Public Opinions, and 
general fashions, and thence descending to private life, we 
shall find that men very usually know the requisitions of the 
Moral Law better than they seem to know them ; and that 
he who estimates the moral knowledge of societies or indi- 



7* 



78 



THE IMMEDIATE COMMUNICATION [ESSAY I. 



viduals by their common language, refers to an uncertain and 
fallacious standard. 

After all, the uniformity of human opinion respecting the 
great laws of morality is very remarkable. Sir James Mack- 
intosh speaks of Grotius, who had cited poets, orators, his- 
torians, &c, and says, " He quotes them as witnesses, whose 
conspiring testimony, mightily strengthened and confirmed by 
their discordance on almost every other subject, is a conclu- 
sive proof of the unanimity of the whole human race, on the 
great rules of duty and fundamental principles of morals."* 

From poets and orators we may turn to savage life. In 
1683, that is, soon after the colonization of Pennsylvania, the 
founder of the colony held a " council and consultation" with 
some of the Indians. In the course of the interview it ap- 
peared that these savages believed in a state of future retribu- 
tion ; and they described their simple ideas of the respective 
states of the good and bad. The vices that they enumerated 
as those which would consign them to punishment, are remark- 
able, inasmuch as they so nearly correspond to similar enu- 
merations in the Christian Scriptures. They were " theft, 
swearing, lying, whoring, murder, and the like ;"t and the 
New Testament affirms that those who are guilty of adultery, 
fornication, lying, theft, murder, &c, shall not inherit the 
kingdom of God. The same writer having on his travels 
met with some Indians, stopped and gave them some good 
and serious advices. " They wept," says he, " and tears ran 
down their naked bodies. They smote their hands upon their 
breasts and said, ' The Good Man here told them what I said 
was all good.' V | _____ 

But reasonings such as these are in reality not necessary 
to the support of the truth of the Immediate Communication 
of the Will of God ; because if the variations in men's no- 
tions of right and wrong were greater than they are, they 
would not impeach the existence of that communication. In 
the first place, we never afnrm that the Deity communicates 
all his law to every man : and in the second place, it is suffi- 
ciently certain that multitudes know his laws, and yet neglect 
to fulfil them. 

If, in conclusion, it should be asked, what assistance can 
be yielded, in the investigation of publicly authorized rule^ 
of virtue, by the discussions of the present chapter ? we an- 
swer, Very little. But when it is asked, Of what impor- 

* Disc, on Study of Law of Nature and Nations. 

t John Richardson's Life. X Ibid. 



CHAP. VI.] 



OF THE LAW OF GOD. 



79 



tance are they as illustrating the Principles of Morality ? we 
answer, Very much. If there be two sources from which it 
has pleased God to enable mankind to know his Will — a law 
written externally, and a law communicated to the heart — it 
is evident that both must be regarded as Principles of Mo- 
rality, and that, in a work like the present, both should be 
illustrated as such. It is incidental to the latter mode of 
moral guidance, that it is little adapted to the formation of ex- 
ternal rules ; but it is of high and solemn importance to our 
species for the secret direction of the individual man. 



ESSAY I. 



PART II. 

SUBORDINATE MEANS OF DISCOVERING 
THE DIVINE WILL. 



CHAPTER L 

THE LAW OF THE LAND. 

Its authority — Limits to its authority — Morality sometimes prohibits 
what the law permits. 

The authority of civil government as a director of indi- 
vidual conduct, is explicitly asserted in the Christian Scrip- 
tures : — " Be subject to principalities and powers, — Obey ma- 
gistrates,"*—" Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man 
for the Lord's sake : whether it be to the king, as supreme ; 
or unto governors, as unto theiff that are sent by him for the 
punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do 
well."t 

By this general sanction of civil government, a multitude 
of questions respecting human duty are at once decided. In 
ordinary cases, he upon whom the magistrate imposes a law, 
needs not to seek for knowledge of his duty upon the subject 
from a higher source; The divine will is sufficiently indi- 
cated by the fact that the magistrate commands. Obedience 
to the Law is obedience to the expressed will of God. He 
who, in the payment of a tax to support the just exercise of 
government, conforms to the Law of the Land, as truly obeys 
the divine will, as if the Deity had regulated questions of 
taxation, by express rules. 

In thus founding the authority of civil government upon the 
precepts of revelation, we refer to the ultimate, and for that 
reason to the most proper sanction. Not, indeed, that if reve- 
lation had been silent, the obligation of obedience might not 
have been deduced from other considerations. The utility of 



* Tit. iii. 1. 



1 1 Pet. ii. 13. 



CHAP. I.] 



THE LAW OF THE LAND. 



81 



government — its tendency to promote the order and happiness 
of society — powerfully recommend its authority ; so power- 
fully, indeed, that it is probable that the worst government 
which ever existed, was incomparably better than none ; and 
we shall hereafter have occasion to see that considerations of 
Utility involve actual moral obligation. 

The purity and practical excellence of the motives to civil 
obedience which are proposed in the Christian Scriptures, are 
especially worthy of regard. " Submit for the Lord's sake." 
" Be subject, not only for wrath, but for conscience' sake." 
Submission for wrath's sake, that is, from fear of penalty, im- 
plies a very inferior motive to submission upon grounds of 
principle and duty ; and as to practical excellence, who can- 
not perceive that he who regulates his obedience by the mo- 
tives of Christianity, acts more worthily, and honourably, and 
consistently, than he who is influenced only by fear of pen- 
alties ? The man who obeys the laws for conscience' sake, 
will obey always ; alike when disobedience would be unpun- 
ished and unknown, as when it would be detected the next 
hour. The magistrate has a security for such a man's fidel- 
ity, which no other motive can supply. A smuggler will im- 
port his kegs if there is no danger of a seizure — a Christian 
will not buy the brandy though no one knows it but himself. 

It is to be observed, that the obligation of civil obedience 
is enforced, whether the particular command of the law is in 
itself sanctioned by morality or not. Antecedently to the 
existence of the law of the magistrate respecting the impor- 
tation of brandy, it was of no consequence in the view of 
morality whether brandy was imported or not ; but the prohi- 
bition of the magistrate involves a moral obligation to refrain. 
Other doctrine has been held ; #nd it has been asserted, that 
unless the particular law is enforced by morality, it does not 
become obligatory by the command of the state.* But if this 
were true — if no law was obligatory that was not previously 
enjoined by morality, no moral obligation would result from 
the law of the land. Such a question is surely set at rest by, 
" Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man." 

But the authority of civil government is a subordinate au- 
thority. If, from any cause, the magistrate enjoins that which 
is prohibited by the Moral Law, the duty of obedience is 
withdrawn. " All human authority ceases at the point where 
obedience becomes criminal." The reason is simple ; that 
when the magistrate enjoins what is criminal, he has ex- 



* See Godwin's Political Justice. 



82 



THE LAW OF THE LAND. 



[ESSAY I. 



ceeded his power: "the minister of God" has gone beyond 
his commission. There is, in our day, no such thing as a 
moral plenipotentiary. 

Upon these principles, the first teachers of Christianity 
acted when the rulers " called them, and commanded them not 
to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. — " Whether," 
they replied, " it be right in the sight of God, to hearken unto 
you more than unto God, j'idge ye."* They accordingly " en- 
tered into the temple early in the morning and taught :" and 
when, subsequently, they were again brought before the coun 
cil and interrogated, they replied, " We ought to obey God 
rather than men ;" and notwithstanding the renewed command 
of the council, " daily in the temple and in every house, they 
ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ."f — Nor let any 
one suppose that there is any thing religious in the motives 
of the apostles, which involved a peculiar obligation upon 
them to refuse obedience : we have already seen that the ob- 
ligation to conform to religious duty and to moral duty, is one. 

To disobey the civil magistrate is however not a light thing. 
When the Christian conceives that the requisitions of gov- 
ernment and of a higher law are conflicting, it is needful that 
he exercise a strict scrutiny into the principles of his con- 
duct. But if, upon such scrutiny, the contrariety of requisi- 
tions appears real, no room is left for doubt respecting his 
duty, or for hesitation in performing it. With the considera- 
tion of consequences he has then no concern : whatever they 
may be, his path is plain before him. 

It is sufficiently evident that these doctrines respect non- 
compliance only. It is one thing not to comply with laws, 
and another to resist those who make or enforce them. He 
who thinks the payment of tithes unchristian, ought to decline 
to pay them ; but he would act upon strange principles of 
morality, if, when an officer came to distrain upon his pro- 
perty, he forcibly resisted his authority .J 

If there are cases in which the positive injunctions of the 
law may be disobeyed, it is manifest that the mere permission 
of the law to do a given action, conveys no sufficient au- 
thority to perform it. There are, perhaps, no disquisitions, 
connected with the present subject, which are of greater prac- 
tical utility than those which show, that not every thing which 
is legally right is morally right ; that a man may be entitled 

* Acts iv. 18. t Acts v. 29, 42. 

\ We speak here of private obligations only. Respecting the political 
obligations which result from the authority of civil government, some ob- 
servations will be found in the chapter on Civil Obedience. Ess. iii. c v. 



CHAP. I.] 



THE LAW OF THE LAND. 



83 



by law to privileges which morality forbids him to exercise, 
or to possessions which morality forbids him to enjoy. 

As to the possession, for example, of property : the gen- 
eral foundation of the right to property is the Law of the 
Land. But as the Law of the Land is itself subordinate, it 
is manifest that the right to property must be subordinate also, 
and must be held in subjection to the Moral Law. A man 
who has a wife and two sons, and who is worth fifteen hun- 
dred pounds, dies without a will. The widow possesses no 
separate property, but the sons have received from another 
quarter ten thousand pounds a-piece. Now, of the fifteen 
hundred pounds which the intestate left, the law assigns five 
hundred to the mother, and five hundred to each son. Are 
these sons morally permitted to take each his five hundred 
pounds, and to leave their parent with only five hundred for 
her support 1 Every man I hope will answer, No : and the 
reason is this ; that the Moral Law, which is superior to the 
Law of the Land, forbids them to avail themselves of their 
legal rights. The Moral Law requires justice and benevo- 
lence, and a due consideration for the wants and necessities 
of others ; and if justice and benevolence would be violated 
by availing ourselves of legal permissions, those permissions 
are not sufficient authorities to direct our conduct. 

It has been laid down, that " so long as we keep within the 
design and intention of a law, that law will justify us, in for o 
conscienticB as in foro humano, whatever be the equity or ex- 
pediency of the law itself."* From the example which has 
been offered, I think it sufficiently appears that this maxim is 
utterly unsound : at any rate, its unsoundness will appear from 
a brief historical fact. During the Revolutionary war in Amer- 
ica, the Virginian Legislature passed a law, by which " it 
was enacted, that all merchants and planters in Virginia who 
owed money to British merchants, should be exonerated from 
their debts, if they paid the money due into the public trea- 
sury instead of sending it to Great Britain ; and all such as 
stood indebted, were invited to come forward and give their 
money, in this manner, towards the support of the contest in 
which America was then engaged." Now, according to the 
principles of Paley, these Virginian planters would have been 
justified, in foro conscientia, in defrauding the British mer- 
chants of the money which was their due. It is quite clear 
that the " design and intention of the law" was to allow the 
fraud — the planters were even invited to commit it ; and yet 



* Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. iii. p. 1, c. 4. 



84 



THE LAW OF THE LAND. 



[ESSAY I. 



the heart of every reader will tell him, that to have availed 
themselves of the legal permission, would have been an act 
of flagitious dishonesty. The conclusion is therefore distinct 
— that legal decisions respecting property, are not always a 
sufficient warrant for individual conduct. To the extreme 
disgrace of these planters it should be told, that although at 
first, when they would have gained little by the fraud, few of 
them paid their debts into the treasury, yet afterwards many 
large sums were paid. The Legislature offered to take the 
American paper money : and as this paper money, in conse- 
quence of its depreciation, was not worth a hundredth part 
of its value in specie, the planters, in thus paying their debts 
to their own government, paid but one pound instead of a hun- 
dred, and kept the remaining ninety -nine in their own pock- 
ets ! Profligate as these planters and as this Legislature 
were, it is pleasant for the sake of America to add, that in 
1796, after the Supreme Court of the United States had been 
erected, the British merchants brought the affair before it ; 
and the judges directed that every one of these debts should 
again be paid to the rightful creditors. 

It might be almost imagined that the moral philosopher 
designed to justify such conduct as that of the planters. He 
says, when a man "refuses to pay a debt of the reality of 
which he is conscious, he cannot plead the intention of the 
statute, unless he could show that the law intended to inter- 
pose its supreme authority to acquit men of debts of the ex- 
istence and justice of which they were themselves sensible."* 
Now the planters could show that this was the intention of 
the law, and yet they were not justified in availing themselves 
of it. The error of the moralist is founded in the assumption, 
that there is " supreme authority" in the law. Make that au- 
thority, as it really is, subordinate, and the error and the falla- 
cious rule which is founded upon it, will be alike corrected. 

In applying to the Law of the Land as a moral guide, it is 
of importance to distinguish its intention from its letter. The 
intention is not, indeed, as we have seen, a final considera- 
tion, but the design of a legislature is evidently of greater 
import, and consequent obligation, than the literal interpreta- 
tion of the words in which that design is proposed to be ex- 
pressed. The want of a sufficient attention to this simple 
rule, occasions many snares to private virtue, and the com- i 
mission of much practical injustice. In consequence, partly 
of the inadequacy of all language, and partly of the inability 



* Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 3, p. 1, c. 4. 



CHAP. II.] 



THE LAW OF NATURE. 



85 



of those who frame laws, accurately to provide for cases 
which subsequently arise, it happens that the literal applica- 
tion of a law, sometimes frustrates the intention of the legis- 
lator, and violates the obligations of justice. Whatever be the 
cause, it is found in practice, that courts of law usually re- 
gard the letter of a statute rather than its general intention ; 
and hence it happens that many duties devolve upon individ- 
uals in the application of the laws in their own affairs. If 
legal courts usually decide by the letter, and if decision by 
the letter often defeats the objects of the legislator and the 
claims of justice, how shall these claims be satisfied except 
by the conscientious and forbearing integrity of private men 1 
Of the cases in which this integrity should be brought into 
exercise, several examples will be offered in the early part 
of the next Essay. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE LAW OF NATURE. 

Its authority — Limits to its authority — Obligations resulting from the 
Rights of Nature — Incorrect ideas attached to the word Nature. 

We iiere use the term, the Law of Nature, as a convenient 
title under which to advert to the authority, in moral affairs, 
of what are called Natural Instincts and Natural rights. 

" They who rank Pity among the original impulses of our 
nature, rightly contend that when this principle prompts us 
to the relief of human misery, it indicates the divine intention 
and our duty. Indeed, the same conclusion is deducible 
from the existence of the passion, whatever account be given 
of its origin. Whether it be an instinct or a habit, it is in 
fact a property of our nature which God appointed."* 

I should reason similarly respecting Natural Rights — the 
right to life — to personal liberty — to a share of the productions 
of the earth. The fact that life is given us by our Creator — 
that our personal powers and mental dispositions are adapted 
by Him to personal liberty — and that He has constituted our 
bodies so as to need the productions of the earth, are satis- 
factory indications of the Divine Will, and of human duty. 

So that we conclude the general proposition is true — that 

* Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 3, p. 2, c. 4. 
8 



86 



THE LAW OF NATURE. 



[ESSAY I. 



a regard to the Law of Nature, in estimating human duty, is 
accordant with the Will of God. There is little necessity 
for formally insisting on the authority of the Law of Nature, 
because few are disposed to dispute that authority, at least 
when their own interests are served by appealing to it. If 
this authority were questioned, perhaps it might be said that 
the expression of the Divine Will tacitly sanctions it, because 
that expression is addressed to us under the supposition that 
our constitution is such as it is ; and because some of the 
Divine precepts appear to specify a point at which the autho- 
rity of the Law of Nature stops. To say that a rule is only 
in some cases wrong, is to say, that in many it is right : to 
which may be added the consideration, that the tendency of 
the Law of Nature is manifestly beneficial. No man ques- 
tions that the " original impulses of our nature" tend power- 
fully to the well-being of the species. 

In speaking of the Instincts of Nature, we enter into no 
curious definitions of what constitutes an instinct. Whether 
any of our passions or emotions be properly instinctive, or the 
effect of association, is of little consequence to the purpose, 
so long as they actually subsist in the human economy, and 
so long as we have reason to believe that their subsistence 
there is in accordance with the Divine Will. 

But the authority of the Law of Nature, like every other 
authority, is subordinate to that of the Moral Law. This 
indeed is sufficiently indicated by those reasonings which 
show the universal supremacy of that law. Yet it may be of 
advantage to remember such expressions as these : " Be not 
afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more 
that they can do. But fear him which, after he hath killed „ 
hath power to cast into hell."* This appears distinctly to 
place an instinct of nature in subordination to the Moral Law. 
The " fear of them that kill the body," results from the in- 
stinct of self-preservation ; and by this instinct we are not to 
be guided when the Divine Will requires us to repress its 
voice. 

Parental affection has been classed amongst the instincts, f 
The declaration, " He that loveth son or daughter more than 
Me, is not worthy of me,"J clearly subjects this instinct to 
the higher authority of the Divine Will ; for the " love" of 
God is to be manifested by obedience to his law. Another 
declaration to the same import subjects also the instinct of 
self-preservation : " If a man hate not (that is by comparison) 



* Luke xii. 4. 



t Dr. Price. 



\ Matt. x. 37. 



CHAP. II.] 



THE LAW OF NATURE. 



87 



his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."* And here it 
is remarkable, that these affections or instincts are adduced 
for the purpose of inculcating their subordination to the Moral 
Law. 

Upon one of the most powerful instincts of nature, the re- 
straints of revelation are emphatically laid. Its operation is 
restricted, not to a few of its possible objects, but exclusively 
to one ; and to that one upon an express and specified condi- 
tion.! 

The propriety of holding the natural impulses in subjection 
to a higher law, appears to be asserted in this language of 
Dugald Stewart : " The dictates of reason and conscience 
inform us, in language which it is impossible to mistake, that 
it is sometimes a duty to check the most amiable and pleasing 
emotions of the heart ; to withdraw, for example, from the 
sight of those distresses which stronger claims forbid us to 
relieve, and to deny ourselves that exquisite luxury which 
arises from the exercise of humanity." Even that morality 
which is not founded upon religion, recommends the same 
truth. Godwin says, that if Fenelon were in his palace, and 
it took fire, and it so happened that the life either of himself 
or of his chambermaid must be sacrificed, it would be the 
duty of the woman to repress the instinct of self-preservation, 
and sacrifice hers — because Fenelon would do more good in 
the world.| tne morality of scepticism inculcates this 
subjugation of our instincts to indeterminate views of advan- 
tage, much more does the morality of the New Testament 
teach us to subject them to the determinate Will of God. 

It is upon these principles that some of the most noble 
examples of human excellence have been exhibited — those 
of men who have died for the testimony of a good conscience. 
If the strongest of our instincts — if that instinct, excited to 
its utmost vigour by the apprehension of a dreadful death, 
might be of weight to suspend the obligation of the Moral 
Law, it surely might have been suspended in the case of 
those who thus proved their fidelity. 

Yet, obvious as is the propriety and the duty of thus pre- 
ferring the Divine Law before all, the dictates or the rights 
of nature are continually urged as of paramount obligation. 
Many persons appear to think that if a given action is dicta- 
ted by the law of nature, it is quite sufficient. Respecting 
the instinct of self-preservation, especially, they appear to 
conclude that to whatever that instinct prompts, it is lawful 

* Luke xiv. 26. t See Matt. iv. 9. 1 Cor. vi. 9. vii. 1, 2. Gal. v. 19, &c. 
t Political Justice. 



88 



THE LAW OF NATURE. 



[essay I. 



to conform to its voice. They do not surely reflect upon the 
monstrousness of their opinions : they do not surely consider 
that they are absolutely superseding the Moral Law of God, 
and superseding it upon considerations resulting merely from 
the animal part of our constitution. The Divine Laws re- 
spect the whole human economy — our prospects in another 
world as well as our existence in the present. 

Some men, again, speak of our rights in a state of nature, 
as if to be in a state of nature was to be without the jurisdic- 
tion of the Moral Law. But if man be a moral and responsi- 
ble agent, that law applies every where ; to a state of nature 
as truly as to every other state. If some other human being 
had been left with Selkirk or Juan Fernandez, and if that other 
seized an animal which Selkirk had ensnared, would Selkirk 
have been justified in asserting his natural right to the animal 
by whatever means ? It is very possible that no means would 
have availed to procure the restoration of the rabbit or the 
bird short of hilling the offender. Might Selkirk kill the man 
in assertion of his natural rights ? Every one answers, No — 
because the unsophisticated dictates in every man's mind 
assures us that the rights of nature are subordinate to higher 
laws. 

Situations similar to those of a state of nature sometimes 
arise in society ;* as where money is demanded, or violence 
is committed by one person on another, where no third per- 
son can be called in to assistance. The injured party, in 
such a case, cannot go to every length in his own cause by 
virtue of the law of nature : he can go only so far as the 
Moral Law allows. These considerations will be found pe- 
culiarly applicable to the rights ftf self-defence ; and it is 
pleasant to find these doctrines supported by that sceptical 
morality to which we just now referred. The author of Po- 
litical Justice maintains that man possesses no rights ; that is, 
no absolute rights — none, of which the just exercise is not 
conditional upon the permission of a higher rule. That rule, 
with him, is " Justice" — with us it is the law of God ; but the 
reasoning is the same in kind. 

Nevertheless, the natural rights of man ought to possess 
extensive application both in private and political affairs. If 
it were sufficiently remembered, that these rights are abstract- 
edly possessed in equality by all men, we should find many 
imperative claims upon us with which we do not now com- 
ply. The artificial distinctions of society induce forgetful- 



* See Locke on Gov. b. ii. c. 7. 



CHAP II.] 



THE LAW OF NATURE. 



89 



ness of the circumstance that we are all brethren : not that I 
would countenance the speculations of those who think that 
all men should be now practically equal ; but that these dis- 
tinctions are such, that the general rights of nature are inva- 
ded in a degree which nothing can justify. There are natu- 
ral claims of the poor upon the rich, of dependents upon their 
superiors, which are very commonly forgotten : there are end- 
less acts of superciliousness, and unkindness, and oppression, 
in private life, which the Law of Nature emphatically con- 
demns. When, sometimes, I see a man of fortune speaking 
in terms of supercilious command to his servant, I feel that 
he needs to go and learn some lessons of the Law of Nature. 
I feel that he has forgotten what he is, and what he is not, 
and what his brother is : he has forgotten that by nature he 
and his servant are in strictness equal ; and that although, by 
the permission of Providence, a various allotment is assigned 
to them now, he should regard every one with that considera- 
tion and respect which is due to a man and a brother. And 
when to these considerations are added those which result 
from the contemplation of our relationship to God — that we 
are the common objects of his bounty and his goodness, and 
that we are heirs to a common salvation, we are presented 
with such motives to pay attention to the rights of nature, as 
constitute an imperative obligation. 

The political duties which result from the Law of Nature, 
it is not our present business to investigate ; but it may be 
observed here, that a very limited appeal to facts is sufficient 
to evince, that by many political institutions the Rights of 
Nature have been grievously sacrificed ; and that if those 
Rights had been sufficiently regarded, many of these viciou?, 
institutions would never have been exhibited in the world. 



It appears worth while at the conclusion of this chapte §§ to 
remark, that a person, when he speaks of " Nature," should 
know distinctly what he means. The word carries wi.th. it a 
sort of indeterminate authority ; and he who uses it amiss, 
may connect that authority with rules or actions w^iich are 
little entitled to it. There are few senses in which . the won 1 j 
is used, that do not refer, however obscurely, to G od ; and it 
is for that reason that the notion of authority if j connec ^ed 
with the word. " The very name of nature im plies, tb a ^ & 
must owe its birth to some prior agent, or, to sr^eak pro p©yly, 
signifies in itself nothing."* Yet, unmeaning as the t gu&is, 



* Milton: Christian Doct. p. \4 a 
8* 



90 



THE LAW OF NATURE. 



[ESSAY I. 



it is one of which many persons are very fond whether it 
be that their notions are really indistinct, or that some pur- 
poses are answered by referring to the obscurity of nature 
rather than to God. " Nature has decorated the earth with 
beauty and magnificence," — " Nature has furnished us with 
joints and limbs," — are phrases sufficiently unmeaning ; and 
yet I know not that they are likely to do any other harm than 
to give currency to the common fiction. But when it is said, 
that " Nature teaches us to adhere to truth," — " Nature con- 
demns us for dishonesty or deceit,"—" Men are taught by 
nature that they are responsible beings," — there is consider- 
able danger that we have both fallacious and injurious notions 
of the authority which thus teaches or condemns us. Upon 
this subject it were well to take the advice of Boyle : H Na- 
ture," he says, " is sometimes, indeed commonly, taken for a 
kind of semi-deity. In this sense it is best not to use it at 
all."* It is dangerous to induce confusion into our ideas 
respecting our relationship with God. 

A law of nature is a very imposing phrase ; and it might 
be supposed, from the language of some persons, that nature 
was an independent legislatress, who had sat and framed 
laws for the government of mankind. Nature is nothing; yet 
it would seem that men do sometimes practically imagine, 
that a " law of nature" possesses proper and independent 
authority ; and it may be suspected that with some the notion 
is so palpable and strong, that they set up the authority of 
" the law of nature" without reference to the will of God, or 
perhaps in opposition to it. Even if notions like these float in 
the mind only with vapoury indistinctness, a correspondent 
indistinctness of moral notions is likely to ensue. Every man 
should make to himself the rule, never to employ the word 
Nature when he speaks of ultimate moral authority. A law 
possesses no authority ; the^ authority rests only in the legis- 
lator: and as nature makes no laws, a law of nature involves 
no obigation but that which is imposed by the Divine Will. 

* Jree Inquiry into the vulgarly received Notions of Nature. 



CHAP. III.] 



UTILITY. 



91 



CHAPTER III. 

UTILITY. 

Obligations resulting from Expediency — Limits to these obligations. 

That in estimating our duties in life we ought to pay re- 
gard to what is useful and beneficial — to what is likely to 
promote the welfare of ourselves and of others — can need little 
argument to prove. Yet, if it were required, it may be easily 
shown that this regard to Utility is recommended or enforced 
in the expression of the Divine Will. That Will requires 
the exercise of pure and universal benevolence ; — which 
benevolence is exercised in consulting the interests, the wel- 
fare, and the happiness of mankind. The dictates of Utility, 
therefore, are frequently no other than the dictates of benevo- 
lence. 

Or, if we derive the obligations of Utility from considera- 
tions connected with our reason, they do not appear much 
less distinct. To say that to consult Utility is right, is almost 
the same as to say, it is right to exercise our understandings. 
The daily and hourly use of reason is to discover what is fit 
to be done ; that is, what is useful and expedient : and since 
it is manifest that the Creator, in endowing us with the faculty, 
designed that we should exercise it, it is obvious that in this 
view also a reference to expediency is consistent with the 
Divine Will. 

When (higher laws being silent) a man judges that of two 
alternatives one is dictated by greater utility, that dictate con- 
stitutes an obligation upon him to prefer it. I should not hold 
a landowner innocent, who knowingly persisted in adopting a 
bad mode of raising corn ; nor should I hold the person inno- 
cent who opposed an improvement in shipbuilding, or who 
obstructed the formation of a turnpike road that would benefit 
the public. These are questions, not of prudence merely, but 
of morals also. 

Obligations resulting from Utility possess great extent of 
application to political affairs. There are, indeed, some public 
concerns in which the Moral Law, antecedently, decides no- 
thing. Whether a duty shall be imposed, or a charter granted, 
or a treaty signed, are questions which are perhaps to be de- 
termined by expediency alone : but when a public man is of 
the judgment that any given measure will tend to the general 
good, he is immoral if he opposes that measure. The immo- 



92 



UTILITY. 



[ESSAY I. 



rality may indeed be made out by a somewhat different pro- 
cess : — such a man violates those duties of benevolence which 
religion imposes : he probably disregards, too, his sense of 
obligation ; for if he be of the judgment that a given measure 
will tend to the general good, conscience will scarcely be si- 
lent in whispering that he ought not to oppose it. 

It is sufficiently evident, upon the principles which have 
hitherto been advanced, that considerations of utility are only 
so far obligatory as they are in accordance with the Moral 
Law. Pursuing, however, the method which has been 
adopted in the two last chapters, it may be observed, that this 
subserviency of Utility to the Divine Will, appears to be re- 
quired by the written revelation. That habitual preference 
of futurity to the present time, which Scripture exhibits, in- 
dicates that our interests here should be held in subordination 
to our interests hereafter : and as these higher interests are 
to be consulted by the means which revelation prescribes, it is 
manifest that those means are to be pursued, whatever we 
may suppose to be their effects upon the present welfare of 
ourselves or of other men. " If in this life only we have hope 
in God, then are we of all men most miserable." It certainly 
is not, in the usual sense of the word, expedient to be most 
miserable. And why did they thus sacrifice expediency? 
Because the communicated Will of God required that course 
of life by which human interests were apparently sacrificed. 
It will be perceived that these considerations result from the 
truth, (too little regarded in talking of " Expediency" and 
" General Benevolence") that Utility, as it respects mankind, 
cannot be properly consulted without taking into account our 
interests in futurity. " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow 
we die," is a maxim of which all would approve if we had no 
concerns with another life. That which might be very expe- 
dient if death were annihilation, may be very inexpedient now. 

" If ye say, We will not dwell in this land, neither obey 
the voice of the Lord your God, saying, No ; but we will go 
into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war ;" " nor 
have hunger of bread ; and there will we dwell ; it shall come 
to pass, that the sword, which ye feared, shall overtake you 
there in the land of Egypt ; and the famine, whereof ye were 
afraid, shall follow close after you in Egypt ; and there ye 
shall die."* — " We will burn incense unto the queen of heaven, 
and pour out drink-offerings unto her ; for then had we plenty 
of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. But since we left 



* Jer. xlii. 



CHAP. III.] 



UTILITY. 



93 



off, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by 
the sword, and by the famine." — Therefore, "I will watch 
over them for evil, and not for good."* These reasoners ar- 
gued upon the principle of making expediency the paramount 
law ; and it may be greatly doubted whether those who argue 
upon that principle now, have better foundation for their rea- 
soning than those of old. Here was the prospect of advan- 
tage founded, as they thought, upon experience. One course 
of action had led (so they reasoned) to war and famine, and 
another to plenty, and health, and general well-being: yet 
still our Universal Lawgiver required them to disregard all 
these conclusions of expediency, and simply to conform to 
His will. 

After all, the general experience is, that what is most ex- 
pedient with respect to another world, is most expedient with 
respect to the present. There may be cases, and there have 
been, in which the Divine Will may require an absolute re- 
nunciation of our present interests ; as the martyr who main- 
tains his fidelity, sacrifices all possibility of advantage now. 
But these are unusual cases ; and the experience of the con- 
trary is so general, that the truth has been reduced to a pro- 
verb. Perhaps in nineteen cases out of twenty, he best con- 
sults his present welfare, who endeavours to secure it in 
another world. " By the wise contrivance of the Author of 
nature, virtue is upon all ordinary occasions, even with regard 
to this life, real wisdom, and the surest and readiest means 
of obtaining both safety and advantage. "t Were it however 
otherwise, the truth of our principles would not be shaken. 
Men's happiness, and especially the happiness of good men, 
does not consist merely in external things. The promise of 
a hundred fold in this present life may still be fulfilled in 
mental felicity ; and if it could not be, who is the man that 
would exclude from his computations the prospect,- in the 
world to come, of life everlasting ? 

In the endeavour to produce the greatest sum of happiness, 
or which is the same thing, in applying the dictates of Utility 
to our conduct in life, there is one species of utility that is 
deplorably disregarded both in private and public affairs — that 
which respects the religious and moral welfare of mankind. 
If you hear a politician expatiating upon the good tendency 
of a measure, he tells you how greatly it will promote the in- 
terests of commerce, or how it will enrich a colony, or how 
it will propitiate a powerful party, or how it will injure a na- 



Jer. xliv. 



t Dr. Smith : Theor. Mor. Sent. 



94 



UTILITY. 



[ESSAY I. 



tion whom lie dreads; but you hear probably not one word 
of enquiry whether it will corrupt the character of those who 
execute the measure, or whether it will introduce vices into 
the colony, or whether it Will present new temptations to the 
virtue of the public. And yet these considerations are per- 
haps by far the most important in the view even of enlight- 
ened expediency ; for it is a desperate game to endeavour to 
benefit a people by means which may diminish their virtue. 
Even such a politician would probably assent to the unapplied 
proposition, " the virtue of a people is the best security for 
their welfare." It is the same in private life. You hear a 
parent who proposes to change his place of residence, or to 
engage in a new profession or pursuit, discussing the compara- 
tive conveniences of the proposed situation, the prospect of 
profit in the new profession, the pleasures which will result 
from the new pursuit ; but you hear probably not one word of 
enquiry whether the change of residence will deprive his 
family of virtuous and beneficial society which will not be 
replaced — whether the contemplated profession will not tempt 
his own virtue or diminish his usefulness — or whether his 
children will not be exposed to circumstances that will proba- 
bly taint the purity of their minds. And yet this parent will 
acknowledge, in general terms, that " nothing can compensate 
for the loss of religious and moral character." Such persons 
surely make very inaccurate computations of Expediency. 

As to the actual conduct of political affairs, men frequently 
legislate as if there was no such thing as religion or morality 
in the world ; or as if, at any rate, religion and morality had 
no concern with affairs of state. I believe that a sort of 
shame (a false and vulgar shame no doubt) would be felt by 
many members of senates, in directly opposing religious or 
moral considerations to prospects of advantage. In our own 
country, those who are most willing to do this receive, from 
vulgar persons, a name of contempt for their absurdity ! How 
inveterate must be the impurity of a system, which teaches 
men to regard as ridiculous that system which only is sound ! 



CHAP. IV.] 



THE LAW OF NATIONS. 



95 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE LAW OF NATIONS.— THE LAW OF HONOUR. 

Although the subjects of this chapter can scarcely be regarded as con- 
stituting rules of life, yet we are induced briefly to notice them in the 
present Essay, partly, on account of the importance of the affairs which 
they regulate, and partly, because they will afford satisfactory illustra- 
tion of the principles of Morality. 



SECTION I. 

THE LAW OF NATIONS. 

Obligations and authority of the Law of Nations — Its abuses, and 
the limits of its authority — Treaties. 

The Law of Nations, so far as it is founded upon the prin- 
ciples of morality, partakes of that authority which those prin- 
ciples possess ; so far as it is founded merely upon the mutual 
conventions of states, it possesses that authority over the 
contracting parties which results from the rule, that men ought 
to abide by their engagements. The principal considerations 
which present themselves upon the subject, appear to be these : 

1 — That the Law of Nations is binding upon those states 
who knowingly allow themselves to be regarded as parties to it. 

2 — That it is wholly nugatory with respect to those states 
which are not parties to it : 

3 — That it is of no force in opposition to the Moral Law : 
I. The obligation of the Law of Nations upon those who 

join in the convention, is plain — that is, it rests, generally, 
upon all civilized communities which have intercourse with 
one another. A tacit engagement only is, from the circum- 
stances of the case, to be expected ; and if any state did not 
choose to conform to the Law of Nations, it should publicly 
express its dissent. The Law of Nations is not wont to 
tighten the bonds of morality ; so that probably most of its 
positive requisitions are enforced by the Moral Law : and 
this consideration should operate as an inducement to a con- 
scientious fulfilment of these requisitions. In time of war, 
the Law of Nations prohibits poisoning and assassination, and 
it is manifestly imperative upon every state to forbear them ; 



96 



THE LAW OF NATIONS. 



[ESSAY I. 



but whilst morality thus enforces many of the requisitions of 
the Law of Nations, that law frequently stops short, instead 
of following on to whither morality would conduct it. This 
distinction between assassination and some other modes of 
destruction that are practised in war, is not perhaps very 
accurately founded in considerations of morality : neverthe- 
less, since the distinction is made, let it be made, and let it 
by all means be regarded. Men need not add arsenic and 
the private dagger to those modes of human destruction which 
war allows. The obligation to avoid private murder is clear, 
even though it were shown that the obligation extends much 
further. Whatever be the reasonableness of the distinction, 
and of the rule that is founded upon it, it is perfidious to vio- 
late that rule. 

So it is with those maxims of the Law of Nations which 
require that prisoners should not be enslaved, and that the 
persons of ambassadors should be respected. Not that I 
think the man who sat down, with only the principles of 
morality before him, would easily be able to show, from those 
principles, that the slavery was wrong whilst other things 
which the Law of Nations allows are right — but that, as 
these principles actually enforce the maxims, as the observ- 
ance of them is agreed on by civilized states, and as they 
tend to diminish the evils of war, it is imperative on states to 
observe them. Incoherent and inconsistent as the Law of 
Nations is, when it is examined by the Moral Law, it is plea- 
sant to contemplate the good tendency of some of its requisi- 
tions. In 1702, previous to the declaration of war by this 
country, a number of the anticipated " enemy's" ships had 
been seized and detained. When the declaration was made, 
these vessels were released, " in pursuance," as the procla- 
mation stated, " of the Law of Nations." Some of these 
vessels were perhaps shortly after captured, and irrecoverably 
lost to their owners : yet though it might perplex the Chris- 
tian moralist to show that the release was right and that the 
capture was right too, still he may rejoice that men conform, 
even in part, to the purity of virtue. 

Attempts to deduce the maxims of international law as they 
now obtain, from principles of morality, will always be vain. 
Grotius seems as if he would countenance the attempt when 
he says, " Some writers have advanced a doctrine which can 
never be admitted, maintaining that the Law of Nations au- 
thorizes one power to commence hostilities against another, 
whose increasing greatness awakens her alarms. As a mat- 
ter of expediency," says Grotius, " such a measure may be 



CHAP. IV.] 



THE LAW OF NATIONS. 



97 



adopted ; but the principles of justice can never be advanced 
in its favour."* Alas ! if principles of justice are to decide 
what the Law of Nations shall authorize, it will be needful to 
establish a new code to-morrow. A great part of the code 
arises out of the conduct of war ; and the usual practices of 
war are so foreign to principles of justice and morality, that 
it is to no purpose to attempt to found the code upon them. 
Nevertheless, let those who refer to the Law of Nations, 
introduce morality by all possible means ; and if they think 
they cannot appeal to it always, let them appeal to it where 
they can. If they cannot persuade themselves to avoid hos- 
tilities when some injury is committed by another nation, let 
them avoid them when " another nation's greatness merely 
awakens their alarms." 

II. That the Law of Nations is wholly nugatory with 
respect to those states which are not parties to it, is a truth 
which, however sound, has been too little regarded in the 
conduct of civilized nations. The state whose subjects dis- 
cover and take possession of an uninhabited island, is entitled 
by the Law of Nations quietly to possess it. And it ought 
quietly to possess it : not that in the view of reason or of mo- 
rality, the circumstance of an Englishman's first visiting the 
shores of a country, gives any very intelligible right to the 
King of England to possess it rather than any other prince, 
but that, such a rule having been agreed upon it, it ought to 
be observed ; but by whom 1 By those who are parties to the 
agreement. For which reason, the discoverer possesses no 
sufficient claim to oppose his right to that of a people who 
were not parties to it. So that he who, upon pretence of 
discovery, should forcibly exclude from a large extent of ter- 
ritory a people who knew nothing of European politics, and 
who in the view of reason possessed an equal or a greater 
right, undoubtedly violates the obligations of morality. It 
may serve to dispel the obscurity in which habit and self-in- 
terest wrap our perceptions, to consider, that amongst the 
states which were nearest to the newly-discovered land, a 
law of nations might exist which required that such land 
should be equally divided amongst them. Whose law of na- 
tions ought to prevail ? That of European states, ov that of 
states in the Pacific or South Sea 1 How happens it that the En- 
glishman possesses a sounder right to exclude all other nations, 
than surrounding nations possess to partition it amongst them ? 

Unhappily, our law of nations goes much further ; and by 

* Rights of War and Peace. 

9 



98 



THE LAW OF NATIONS. 



[ESSAY I. 



a monstrous abuse of power, has acted upon the same doc- 
trine with respect to inhabited countries ; for when these 
have been discovered, the law of nations has talked, with 
perfect coolness, of setting up a standard, and thenceforth 
assigning the territory to the nation whose subjects set it up ; 
as if the previous inhabitants possessed no other claim or 
right than the bears and wolves. It has been asked (and 
asked with great reason,) what we should say to a canoe-full 
of Indians who should discover England, and take possession 
of it in the name of their chief ? 

Civilized states appear to have acted upon the maxim, 
that no people possess political rights but those who are par- 
ties to the law of nations ; and accordingly the history of 
European settlements has been, so far as the aborigines were 
concerned, too much a history of outrage, and treachery, and 
blood. Penn acted upon sounder principles : he perfectly 
well knew that neither an established practice, nor the Law 
of Nations, could impart a right to a country which was justly 
possessed by former inhabitants ; and therefore, although 
Charles II. "granted" him Pennsylvania, he did not imagine 
that the gift of a man in London, could justify him in taking 
possession of a distant country without the occupiers' consent. 
What was "granted" therefore by his sovereign, he purchased 
of the owners ; and the sellers were satisfied with their bar- 
gain and with him. The experience of Pennsylvania has 
shown that integrity is politic as well as right. When nations 
shall possess greater expansion of knowledge, and exercise 
greater purity of virtue, it will be found that many of the 
principles which regulate international intercourse, are fool- 
ish as well as vicious ; that whilst they disregard the interests 
of morality they sacrifice their own. 

III. Respecting the third consideration, that the Law of 
Nations is of no force in opposition to the Moral Law, little 
needs to be said here. It is evident that, upon whatever 
foundation the Law of Nations rests, its authority is subordi- 
nate to that of the Will of God. When, therefore, we say 
that amongst civilized states, when an island is discovered by 
one state, other states are bound to refrain, it is not indentical 
with sayijng that the discoverer is at liberty to keep posses- 
sion by whatever means. The mode of asserting all rights is 
to be regulated in subordination to the Moral Law. Dupli- 
city, and fraud, and violence, and bloodshed, may perhaps 
sometimes be the only means of availing ourselves of the 
rights which the Law of Nations grants : but it were a con- 



CHAP. IV.] 



THE LAW OF NATION; 



99 



fused species of morality which should allow the commission 
of all this, because it is consistent with the Law of Nations. 

A kindred remark applies to the obligation of treaties. 
Treaties do not oblige us to do what is morally wrong. A 
treaty is a string of engagements ; but those engagements are 
no more exempt from the jurisdiction of the Moral Law, than 
the promise of a man to assassinate another. Does such a 
promise morally bind the ruffian ? No : and for this reason, 
and for no other, that the performance is unlawful. And so it 
is with treaties. Two nations enter into a treaty of offensive 
and defensive alliance. Subsequently one of them engages 
in an unjust and profligate war. Does the treaty morally 
bind the other nation to abet the profligacy and injustice 1 
No : if it did, any man might make any action lawful to him- 
self by previously engaging to do it. No doubt such a nation 
and such a ruffian have done wrong ; but their offence con- 
sisted in making the engagement, not in breaking it. Even 
if ordinary wars were defensible, treaties of offensive alliance 
that are unconditional with respect to time or objects, can 
never be justified. The state, however, which, in the pursuit 
of a temporary policy, has been weak enough, or vicious 
enough to make them, should not hesitate to refuse fulfilment, 
when the act of fulfilment is incompatible with the Moral 
Law. Such a state should decline to perforin the treaty, and 
retire with shame — with shame, not that it has violated its 
engagements, but that it was ever so vicious as to make them. 



SECTION II 

THE LAW OF HONOUR. 

Authority of the Law of Honour — Its character. 

The Law of Honour consists of a set of maxims, written 
or understood, by which persons of a certain class agree to 
regulate, or are expected to regulate, their conduct. It is 
evident that the obligation of the Law of Honour, as such, 
results exclusively from the agreement, tacit or expressed, of 
the parties concerned. It binds them because they have agreed 
to be bound, and for no other reason. He who does not 
choose to be ranked amongst the subjects of the Law of Hon- 
our, is under no obligation to obey its rules. These rules 



100 



THE LAW OF HONOUR. 



[ESSAY I. 



are precisely upon trie same footing as the laws of free-ma- 
sonry, or the regulations of a reading-room. He who does 
not choose to subscribe to the room, or to promise conformity 
to masonic laws, is under no obligation to regard the rules of 
either. 

For which reason, it is very remarkable that at the com- 
mencement of his Moral Philosophy, Dr. Paley says, The 
rules of life " are, the Law of Honour, the Law of the Land, 
and the Scriptures." It were strange indeed, if that were a 
rule of life which every man is at liberty to disregard if he 
pleases ; and which, in point of fact, nine persons out of ten 
do disregard without blame. Who would think of taxing the 
writer of these pages with violating a " rule of life," because 
he pays no attention to the Law of Honour ? " The Scrip- 
tures" communicate the Will of God ; " the Law of the Land" 
is enforced by that Will ; but where is the sanction of the 
Law of Honour 1 — It is so much the more remarkable that 
this law should have been thus formally proposed as a rule 
of life, because, in the same work, it is described as " unau- 
thorized." How can a set of unauthorized maxims compose 
a rule of life ? But further : the author says that the Law of 
Honour is a " capricious rule, which abhors deceit, yet ap- 
plauds the address of a successful intrigue" — And further 
still : " it allows of fornication, adultery, drunkenness, prodi- 
gality, duelling, and of revenge in the extreme." Surely 
then it cannot, with any propriety of language, be called a 
rule of life. 

Placing, then, the obligation of the Law of Honour, as 
such, upon that which • appears to be its proper basis — the 
duty to perform our lawful engagements — it may be concluded, 
that when a man goes to a gaming-house or a race-course, 
and loses his money by betting or playing, he is morally 
bound to pay : not because morality adjusts the rules of the 
billiard room or the turf, not because the Law of the Land 
sanctions the stake, but because the party previously promised 
to pay it. Nor would it affect this obligation, to allege that 
the stake was itself both illegal and immoral. So it was ; 
but the payment is not. The payment of such a debt involves 
no breach of the Moral Law. The guilt consists not in pay- 
ing the money, but in staking it. Nevertheless, there may 
be prior claims upon a man's property which he ought first to 
pay. Such are those of lawful creditors. The practice of 
paying debts of honour with promptitude, and of delaying the 
payment of other debts, argues confusion or depravity of prin- 
ciple. It is not honour, in any virtuous and rational sense 



CHAP. IV.] 



THE LAW OF HONOUR. 



101 



of the word, which induces men to pay debts of honour in- 
stantly. Real honour would induce them to pay their lawfu 
debts first : and indeed it may be suspected that the motive 
to the prompt payment of gaming debts, is usually no other 
than the desire to preserve a fair name with the world. In- 
tegrity of principle has often so little to do with it, that this 
principle is sacrificed in order to pay them. 

With respect to those maxims of the Law of Honour which 
require conduct that the Moral Law forbids, it is quite mani- 
fest that they are utterly indefensible. " If unauthorized laws 
of honour be allowed to create exceptions to divine prohibi- 
tions, there is an end of all morality as founded in the Will 
of the Deity, and the obligation of every duty may at one 
time or other be discharged."* These observations apply to 
those foolish maxims of honour which relate to duelling. 
These maxims can never justify the individual in disregarding 
the obligations of morality. He who acts upon them acts 
wickedly; unless indeed he be so little informed of the requisi- 
tions of morality, that he does not, upon this subject, perceive 
the distinction between right and wrong. The man of honour 
therefore should pay a gambling debt, but he should not send 
a challenge or accept it. The one is permitted by the Moral 
Law, the other is forbidden. 

Whatever advantages may result from the Law of Honour, 
it is, as a system, both contemptible and bad. Even its ad- 
vantages are of an ambiguous kind ; for although it may prompt 
to rectitude of conduct, that conduct is not founded upon 
rectitude of principle. The motive is not so good as the act. 
And as to many of its particular rules, both positive and ne- 
gative, they are the proper subject of reprobation and abhor- 
rence. We ought to reprobate and abhor a system which 
enjoins the ferocious practice of challenges and duels, and 
which allows many of the most flagitious and degrading vices 
that infest the world. 

The practical effects of the Law of Honour are probably 
greater and worse than we are accustomed to suppose. Men 
learn by the power of association, to imagine that that is law- 
ful which their maxims of conduct do not condemn. A set 
of rules which inculcates some actions that are right, and per- 
mits others that are wrong, practically acts as a sanction 
to the *wrong. The code which attaches disgrace to 
falsehood, but none to drunkenness or adultery, operates 
as a sanction to drunkenness and adultery. Does not ex- 



* Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. iii. c. 9. 
9* 



102 



THE LAW OF HONOUR. 



[ESSAY I. 



perience verify these conclusions of reason 1 Is it not true 
that men and women of honour indulge, with the less hesita- 
tion, in some vices, in consequence of the tacit permission of 
the Law of Honour 1 What then is to be done but to repro- 
bate the system as a whole 1 In this reprobation the man of 
sense may unite with the man of virtue ; for assuredly the 
system is contemptible in the view of intellect, as well as 
hateful in the view of purity. 



ESSAY II. 



PRIVATE RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS. 

The division which has commonly heen made of the private obligations 
of man, into those which respect himself, his neighbour, and his Creator, 
does not appear to be attended with any considerable advantages. These 
several obligations are indeed so involved the one with the other, that 
there are few personal duties which are not also in some degree relative, 
and there are no duties, either relative or personal, which may not be re- 
garded as duties to God. The suicide's or the drunkard's vice injures his 
family or his friends : for every offence against morality is an injury to 
ourselves, and a violation of the duties which we owe to Him whose law 
is the foundation of morality. Neglecting, therefore, these minuter dis- 
tinctions, we observe those only which separate the Private from the Po- 
litical Obligations of Mankind. 



CHAPTER I. 

RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS. 

Factitious semblances of devotion — Religious conversation — Sabbatical 
institutions — Non-sanctity of days — Of temporal employments : Trav- 
elling : Stage-coaches : " Sunday papers :" Amusements — Holydays — 
Ceremonial institutions and devotional formularies — Utility of forms — 
Forms of prayer — Extempore prayer — Scepticism — Motives to Scepti- 
cism. 

Of the two classes of Religious Obligations — that which 
respects the exercise of piety towards God, and that which 
respects visible testimonials of our reverence and devotion, 
the business of a work like this is principally with the latter. 
Yet at the risk of being charged with deviating from this 
proper business, I would adventure a few paragraphs respect- 
ing devotion of mind. 

That the worship of our Father who is in heaven consists, 
not in assembling with others at an appointed place and hour ; 
not in joining in the rituals of a Christian church, or in per- 
forming ceremonies, or in participating of sacraments,* all 
men will agree ; because all men know that these things may 

* It is to be regretted that this word, of which the origin is so excep- 
tionable, should be used to designate what are regarded as solemn acts 
of religion. 



104 



RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS. 



[ESSAY II. 



be done whilst the mind is wholly intent upon other affairs, 
and even without any belief in the existence of God. " Two 
attendances upon public worship is a form complied with by 
thousands who never kept a Sabbath in their lives."* Devo- 
tion, it is evident, is an operation of the mind ; the sincere 
aspiration of a dependent and grateful being to Him who has 
all power both in heaven and in earth : and as the exercise of 
devotion is not necessarily dependent upon external circum- 
stances, it may be maintained in solitude or in society,. in the 
place appropriated to worship or in the field, in the hour of 
business or of quietude and rest. Even under a less spirit- 
ual dispensation of old, a good man " worshipped, leaning 
upon the top of his staff." 

Now it is to be feared that some persons, who acknowledge 
that devotion is a mental exercise, impose upon themselves 
some feelings as devotional which are wholly foreign to the 
worship of God. There is a sort of spurious devotion — feel- 
ings, having the resemblance of worship, but not possessing 
its nature, and not producing its effects. " Devotion," says 
Blair, "is a powerful principle, which penetrates the soul, 
which purifies the affections from debasing attachments, and 
by a fixed and steady regard to God, subdues every sinful 
passion, and forms the inclinations to piety and virtue.'! To 
purify the affections and subdue the passions, is a serious 
operation : it implies a sacrifice of inclination ; a subjugation 
of the will. This mental operation many persons are not 
willing to undergo : and it is not therefore wonderful that 
some persons are willing to satisfy themselves with the ex- 
ercise of a species of devotion that shall be attained at less 
cost. 

A person goes to an oratorio of sacred music. The ma- 
jestic flow of harmony, the exalted subjects of the hymns or 
anthems, the full and rapt assembly, excite, and warm, and 
agitate his mind ; sympathy becomes powerful ; he feels the 
stirring of unwonted emotions ; weeps, perhaps, or exults ; 
and when he leaves the assembly, persuades himself that he 
has been worshipping and glorifying God. 
• There are some preachers with whom it appears to be an 

object of much solicitude, to excite the hearer to a warm and 
impassioned state of feeling. By ardent declamation or pas- 
sionate displays of the hopes and terrors of religion, they 
arouse and alarm his imagination. The hearer, who desires 
perhaps to experience the ardours of religion, cultivates the 



* Cowper's Letters. 



t Sermons, No. 10. 



CHAP. I.] 



RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS. 



105 



glowing sensations, abandons his mind to the impulse of feel- 
ing, and at length goes home in complacency with his reli- 
gious sensibility, and glads himself with having felt the fer- 
vours of devotion. 

Kindred illusion may be the result of calmer causes. The 
lofty and silent aisle of an ancient cathedral, the venerable 
ruins of some once honoured abbey, the boundless expanse 
of the heaven of stars, the calm immensity of the still ocean, 
or the majesty and terror of a tempest, sometimes suffuses 
the mind with a sort of reverence and awe ; a sort of "philo- 
sophic transport," which a person would willingly hope is 
devotion of the heart. 

It might be sufficient to assure us of the spuriousness of 
these semblances of religious feeling, to consider that emo- 
tions very similar in their nature are often excited by subjects 
which have no connection with religion. I know not whe- 
ther the affecting scenes of the drama and of fictitiouJstory, 
want much but association with ideas of religion to make them 
as devotional as those which have been noticed : and if, on 
the other hand, the feelings of him who attends an oratorio 
were excited by a military band, he would think not of the 
Deity or of heaven, but of armies and conquests. Nor 
should it be forgotten, that persons who have habitually little 
pretension to religion, are perhaps as capable o£ this fac- 
titious devotion as those in whom religion is constantly influ- 
ential ; and surely it is not to be imagined, that those who 
rarely direct reverend thoughts to their Creator, can suddenly 
adore Him for an hour and then forget him again, until some 
new excitement again arouses their raptures, to be again for- 
gotten. 

To religious feelings as to other things, the truth applies — 
" By their fruits ye shall know them." If these feelings do 
not tend to "purify the affections from debasing attach- 
ments ;" if they do not tend to " form the inclinations to piety 
and virtue," they certainly are not devotional. Upon him 
whose mind is really prostrated in the presence of his God, 
the legitimate effect is, that he should be impressed with a 
more sensible consciousness of the Divine presence ; that he 
should deviate with less facility from the path of duty ; that 
his desires and thoughts should be reduced to Christian sub- 
jugation ; that he should feel an influential addition to his 
dispositions to goodness ; and that his affections should be 
expanded towards his fellow men. He Avho rises from the 
sensibilities of seeming devotion, and finds, that effects such 
as these are not produced in his mind, may rest assured that, 



106 



RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS. 



[ESSAY II. 



in whatever he has been employed, it has not been in the 
pure worship of that God who is a spirit. To the real pros- 
tration of the soul in the Divine presence, it is necessary that 
the mind should be still : — " Be still and know that I am 
God." Such devotion is sufficient for the whole mind ; it 
rfeeds not — perhaps in its purest state it admits not — the in- 
trusion of external things. And when the soul is thus per- 
mitted to enter as it were into the sanctuary of God ; when 
it is humble in his presence ; when all its desires are involved 
in the one desire of devotedness to him ; then is the hour of 
acceptable worship — then the petition of the soul is prayer — 
then is its gratitude thanksgiving — then is its oblation praise. 

That such devotion, when such is attainable, will have a 
powerful tendency to produce obedience to the Moral Law, 
may justly be expected : and here indeed is the true connex- 
ion of the subject of these remarks with the general object 
of th£ present essays. Without real and efficient piety of 
mind, we are not to expect a consistent observance of the 
Moral Law. That law requires, sometimes, sacrifices of in- 
clination and of interest, and a general subjugation of the 
passions, which religion, and religion only, can capacitate and 
induce us to make. I recommend not enthusiasm or fanaticism, 
but that sincere and reverent application of the soul to its 
Creator, which alone is likely to give either distinctness to 
our perceptions of his will, or efficiency to our motives to 
fulfil it. 



A few sentences will be indulged to me here respecting 
Religious Conversation. I believe both that the proposition 
is true, and that it is expedient to set it down — that religious 
conversation is one of the banes of the religious world. 
There are many who are really attached to religion, and who 
sometimes feel its power, but who allow their better feelings 
to evaporate in an ebullition of words. They forget how 
much religion is an affair of the mind and how little of the 
tongue : they forget how possible it is to live under its power 
without talking of it to their friends ; and some, it is to be 
feared, may forget how possible it is to talk without feeling 
its influence. Not that the good man's piety is to live in his 
breast like an anchorite in his cell. The evil does not con- 
sist in speaking of religion, but in speaking too much ; not 
in manifesting our allegiance to God ; not in encouraging by 
exhortation, and amending by our advice ; not in placing the 
light upon a candlestick — but in making religion a common 
topic of discourse. Of all species of well intended religious 



CHAP. I.] 



RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS. 



107 



conversation, that perhaps is the most exceptionable which 
consists in narrating our own religious feelings. Many thus in- 
trude upon that religious quietude which is peculiarly favour- 
able to the Christian character. The habit of communicating 
" experiences" I believe to be very prejudicial to the mind. It 
may sometimes be right to do this : in the great majority of 
instances I believe it is not beneficial, and not right. Men 
thus dissipate religious impressions, and therefore diminish 
their effects. Such observation as I have been enabled to 
make, has sufficed to convince me that, where the religious 
character is solid, there is but little religious talk ; and 
that, where there is much talk, the religious character is 
superficial, and, like other superficial things, is easily de- 
stroyed. And if these be the attendants, and in part the 
consequences of general religious conversation, how pecu- 
liarly dangerous must that conversation be, which exposes 
those impressions that perhaps were designed exclusively for 
ourselves, and the use of which may be frustrated by communi- 
cating them to others. Our solicitude should be directed to 
the invigoration of the religious character in our own minds ; 
and we should be anxious that the plant of piety, if it had 
fewer branches might have a deeper root. 

SABBATICAL INSTITUTIONS. 

" Nor forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as 
the manner of some is."* The divinely authorized institu- 
tion of Moses respecting a weekly Sabbath, and the practice 
of the first teachers of Christianity, constitute a sufficient re- 
commendation to set apart certain times for the exercise of 
public worship, even were there no injunctions such as that 
which is placed at the head of this paragraph. It is, besides, 
manifestly proper, that beings who are dependent upon God 
for all things, and especially for their hopes of irnmortality, 
should devote a portion of their time to the expression of 
their gratitude, and submission, and reverence. Community 
of dependence and of hope dictates the propriety of united 
worship ; and worship to be united, must be performed at 
times previously fixed. 

From the duty of observing the Hebrew Sabbath, we are suf- 
ficiently exempted by the fact, that it was actually not observed 
by the apostles of Christ. The early Christians met, not on 
the last day of the week, but on the first. Whatever reason 
may be assigned as a motive for this rejection of the ancient 
* Heb. x. 5. 



108 



RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS. 



[essay n. 



Sabbath, I think it will tend to discountenance the observance 
of any day, as such : for if that day did not possess perpetual 
sanctity, what day does possess it 1 

And with respect to the general tenor of the Christian 
Scriptures as to the sanctity of particular days, it is I think 
manifestly adverse to the opinion that one day is obligatory 
rather than another. " Let no man therefore judge you in 
meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new- 
moon or of the Sabbath-days ; which are a shadow of things 
to come ; but the body is of Christ."* Although this " Sab- 
bath-day" was that of the Jews, yet the passage indicates the 
writer's sentiments, generally, respecting the sanctity of spe- 
cific days : he classes them with matters which all agree to 
be unimportant ; — with meats, and drinks, and new-moons ; 
and pronounces them to be alike " shadows." That strong 
passage addressed to the Christians of Galatia is of the same 
import : " How turn ye again to the weak and beggarly ele- 
ments whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage ? Ye ob- 
serve days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid 
of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain."f That 
which, in writing to the Christians of Colosse, the apostle 
called " shadows," he now, in writing to those of Galatia, calls 
" beggarly elements." The obvious tendency is to discredit 
the observance of particular times ; and if he designed to ex- 
cept the first day of the week, it is not probable that he would 
have failed to except it. 

Nevertheless, the question whether we are obliged to ob- 
serve the first day of the week because it is the first, is one 
point — whether we ought to devote it to religious exercises, 
seeing that it is actually set apart for the purpose, is another. 
The early Christians met on that day, and their example has 
been followed in succeeding times ; but if for any sufficient 
reason, (and such reasons, however unlikely to arise, are yet 
conceivable,) the Christian world should fix upon another 
day of the week instead of the first, I perceive no grounds 
upon which the arrangement could be objected to. As there 
is no sanctity in any day, and no obligation to appropriate 
one day rather than another, that which is actually fixed upon 
is the best and the right one. Bearing in mind, then, that it 
is right to devote some portion of our time to religious exer- 
cises, and that no objection exists to the day which is actually 
appropriated, the duty seems very obvious — so to employ it. 

Cessation from labour on the first day of the week, is no- 

* Col. ii. 16, 17. In Rom. xiv. 5, 6, there is a parallel passage, 
t Gal. iv. 10, 11. 



CHAP. I.] 



RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS. 



109 



where enjoined in the Christian Scriptures. Upon this sub- 
ject, the principles on which a person should regulate his 
conduct appear to be these : He should reflect that the whole 
of the day is not too large a portion of our time to devote to 
public worship, to religious recollectedness, and sedateness 
of mind ; and therefore that occupations which would inter- 
fere with this sedateness and recollectedness, or with public 
worship, ought to be foreborne. Even if he supposed that 
the devoting of the whole of the day was not necessary for 
himself, he should reflect, that since a considerable part of 
mankind are obliged, from various causes, to attend to matters 
unconnected with religion during a part of the day, and that 
one set attends to them during one part and another during 
another — the whole of the day is necessary for the commu- 
nity, even though it were not for each individual : and if 
every individual should attend to his ordinary affairs during 
that portion of the day which he deemed superabundant, the 
consequence might soon be that the day would not be devoted 
to religion at all. 

These views will enable the reader to judge in what man- 
ner Ave should decide questions respecting attentions to tem- 
poral affairs on particular occasions. The day is not sacred, 
therefore business is not necessarily sinful ; the day ought to 
be devoted to religion, therefore other concerns which are not 
necessary are generally, wrong. The remonstrance, "Which 
of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will 
not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath-day ?" sufficiently 
indicates that, when reasonable calls are made upon us, we 
are at liberty to attend to them. Of the reasonableness of 
these calls every man must endeavour to judge for himself. 
A tradesman ought, as a general rule, to refuse to buy or sell 
goods. If I sold clothing, I would furnish a surtout to a man 
who was suddenly summoned on a journey, but not to a man 
who could call the next morning. Were I a builder, I would 
prop a failing wall, but not proceed in the erection of a house. 
Were I a lawyer, I would deliver an opinion to an applicant 
to whom the delay of a day would be a serious injury, but 
not to save him the expense of an extra night's lodging by 
waiting. I once saw with pleasure on the sign-board of a 
public-house a notice, that " none but travellers could be fur- 
nished with liquor on a Sunday." The medical profession, 
and those who sell medicine, are differently situated ; yet it 
is not to be doubted that both, and especially the latter, might 
devote a smaller portion of the day to their secular employ- 
ments, if earnestness in religious concerns were as great as 

10 



110 



RELIGIOUS OBLIGATION: 



[ESSAY II. 



the opportunities to attend to them. Some physicians in ex- 
tensive practice, attend almost as regularly on public worship 
as any of their neighbours. Excursions of pleasure on this 
daycare rarely defensible : they do not comport with the pur- 
poses to which the day is appropriated. To attempt specific 
rules upon such a subject were, however, vain. Not every 
thing which partakes of -relaxation is unallowable. A walk 
in the country may be proper and right, when a party to a 
watering place would be improper and wrong.* There will 
be little difficulty in determining what it is allowable to do 
and what it is not, if the enquiry be not, how much secularity 
does religion allow 1 but, how much can I, without a neglect 
of duty, avoid ? 

The habit which obtains with many persons of travelling 
on this day, is peculiarly indefensible ; because it not only 
keeps the traveller from , his church or meeting, but keeps 
away his servants, or the postmen on the road, and ostlers, 
and cooks, and waiters. All these may be detained from 
public worship by one man's journey of fifty miles. Such a 
man incurs some responsibility. The plea of " saving time" 
is not remote from irreverence ; for if it has any meaning it 
is this, that our time is of more value when employed in busi- 
ness, than when employed in the worship of God. It is dis- 
creditable to this country that the number of carriages which 
traverse it on this day is so great. The evil may rightly and 
perhaps easily *be regulated by the Legislature. You talk of 
difficulties : — you would have talked of many more, if it were 
now, for the first time, proposed to shut up the General Post- 
Office one day in seven. We should have heard of parents 
dying before their children could hear of their danger: of 
bills dishonoured and merchants discredited for want of a 
post ; and of a multitude of other inconveniences which busy 
anticipation would have discovered. Yet the General Post- 
Office is shut ; and where is the evil ? The journeys of stage 
coaches may be greatly diminished in number ; and though 
twenty difficulties may be predicted, none would happen but 
such as were easily borne. An increase of the duty per mile 
on those coaches which travelled every day, might perhaps 

* The scrupulousness of the " Puritans" in the reign of Charles I., and 
the laxity of Laud, whose ordinances enjoined sports after the hours of 
public worship, were both really, though perhaps not equally, improper. 
The Puritans attached sanctity to the day ; and Laud did not consider, 
or did not regard the consideration, that his sports would not only discredit 
the notion of sanctity, but preclude that recollectedness of mind which 
ought to be maintained throughout the whole day. 



CHAP. I.] 



RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS. 



311 



effect the object. Probably not less than forty persons are 
employed on temporal affairs, in consequence of an ordinary 
stage coach journey of a hundred miles.* 

A similar regulation would be desirable with respect to 
" Sunday Papers." The ordinary contents of a newspaper 
are little accordant with religious sobriety and abstraction from 
the world. News of armies, and of funds and markets, of' 
political contests and party animosities, of robberies and trials, 
of sporting, and boxing, and the stage ; with merriment, and 
scandal, and advertisements — are sufficiently ill adapted to 
the cultivation of religiousness of mind. An additional two- 
pence on the stamp-duty would perhaps remedy the evil. 

Private, and especially public amusements on this day, are 
clearly wrong. It is remarkable that they appear least will- 
ing to dispense with their amusements on this day, who pur- 
sue them on every other : and the observation affords one 
illustration amongst the many of the pitiable effects of what 
is called — though it is only called — a life of pleasure. 

Upon every kind and mode of negligence respecting these 
religious obligations, the question is not simply, whether the 
individual himself sustains moral injury, but also whether he 
occasions injury to those around him. The example is mis- 
chievous. Even supposing that a man may feel devotion in 
his counting house, or at the tavern, or over a pack of cards, 
his neighbours who know where he is, or his family who see 
what he is doing, are encouraged to follow his example, with- 
out any idea of carrying their religion with them. " My 
neighbour amuses himself — my father attends to his ledgers 
— and why may not I ?" — So that, if such things were not 
intrinsically unlawful, they would be wrong because they are 
inexpedient. Some things might be .done without blame by 
the lone tenant of a wild, which involve positive guilt in a 
man in society. 

Holydays, such as those which are distinguished by the 
names of Christmas-day and Good-Friday, possess no sanction 
from Scripture : they are of human institution. If any re- 
ligious community thinks it is desirable to devote more than 
fifty -two days in the year to the purposes of religion, it is un- 
questionably right that they should devote them ; and it is 
amongst the good institutions of several Christian communi- 
ties, that they do weekly appropriate some additional hours 

* There is reason to believe that to the numerous class of coachmen, 
waiters, &c, the alteration would be most acceptable. I have been told 
by an intelligent coachman, that they would gladly unite in a request to 
their employers if it were likely to avail. 



112 



RELIGIOUS OBLIGATION! 



[essay II. 



to these purposes. The observance of the days in question 
is however of another 'kind : here, the observance refers to 
the day as such; and I know not how the censure can be 
avoided which was directed to those Galatians who " observed 
days, and months, and times, and years." Whatever may be 
the sentiments of enlightened men, those who are not enlight- 
ened are likely to regard such days as sacred in themselves. 
This is turning to beggarly elements : this partakes of the 
character of superstition ; and superstition of every kind and 
in every degree, is incongruous with that " glorious liberty" 
which Christianity describes, and to which it would conduct us. 

CEREMONIAL INSTITUTIONS AND DEVOTIONAL 
FORMULARIES. 

If God have made known his will that any given ceremony 
shall be performed in his church, that expression is sufficient ; 
we do not then enquire into the reasonableness of the cere- 
mony, nor into its utility. There is nothing in the act of 
sprinkling water in an infant's face, or of immersing the person 
of an adult, which recommends it to the view of reason, any 
more than twenty other acts which might be performed : yet, if 
it be clear that such an act is required by the Divine Will, all 
further controversy is at an end. It is not the business, any 
more than it is the desire, of the writer here to enquire 
whether the Deity has thus expressed his will respecting any 
of the rites which are adopted in some Christian churches ; 
yet the reader should carefully bear in mind what it is that 
constitutes the obligation of a rite or ceremony, and what 
does not. Setting utility aside, the obligation must be con- 
stituted by an expression of the Divine Will : and he who en- 
quires into the obligation of these things, should reflect that 
they acquire a sort of adventitious sanctity from the power of 
association. Being connected from early life with his ideas of 
religion, he learns to attach to them the authority which he at- 
taches toreligion itself; and thus perhaps he scarcely knows, be- 
cause he does not enquire, whether a given institution is found- 
ed upon the law of God, or introduced by the authority of men. 

Of some ceremonies or rites, and of almost all formularies 
and other appendages of public worship, it is acknowledged 
that they possess no proper sanction from the Will of God. 
Supposing the written expression of that will to contain no- 
thing by which we can judge either of their propriety or im- 
propriety, the standard to which they are to be referred is 
that of Utility alone. 



CHAP. I.] 



RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS. 



113 



Now, it is highly probable that benefits result from these 
adjuncts of religion, because, in the present state of mankind, 
it may be expected that some persons are impressed with 
useful sentiments respecting religion through the intervention 
of these adjuncts, who might otherwise scarcely regard religion 
at all : it is probable that many are induced to attend upon 
public worship by the attraction of its appendages, who would 
otherwise stay away. Simply to be present at the font or the 
communion table, may be a means of inducing many religious 
considerations into the mind. And as to those who are at- 
tracted to public worship by its accompaniments, they may at 
least be in the way of religious benefit. One goes to hear the 
singing, and one the organ, and one to see the paintings or 
the architecture ; a still larger number go because they are 
sure to find some occupation for their thoughts ; some prayers 
or other offices of devotion, something to hear, and see, and 
do. " The transitions from one office of devotion to another, 
from confession to prayer, from prayer to thanksgiving, from 
thanksgiving to 'hearing of the word,' are contrived, like 
scenes in the drama, to supply the mind with a succession 
of diversified engagements."* These diversified engagements, 
I say, attract some who would not otherwise attend ; and it 
is better that they should go from imperfect motives than that 
they should not go at all. It must, however, be confessed, 
that the groundwork of this species of utility is similar to that 
which has been urged in favour of the use of images by the 
Romish Church. " Idols," say they, " are laymen's books ; 
and a great means to stir up pious thoughts and devotion in the 
learnedest."f Indeed, if it is once admitted that the prospect 
of advantage is a sufficient reason for introducing objects ad- 
dressed to the senses into the public offices of worship, it is 
not easy to define where we shall stop. If we may have 
magnificent architecture, and music, and chanting, and paint- 
ings ; why may we not have the yet more imposing pomp of 
the Catholic worship ? I do not say that this pomp is useful 
and right, but that the principle on which such things are in- 
troduced into the worship of God furnishes no satisfactory 
means of deciding what amount of external observances should 
be introduced, and what should not. If figures on canvass 
are lawful because they are useful, why is not a figure in mar- 
ble or in wood ? Why may we not have images by way of 
laymen's books, and of stirring up pious thoughts and devotion ? 

But it is to be apprehended of such things, or of " contri- 

* Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 5, c. 5. 
t Milton's Prose Works, v. 4. p. 266. 
10* 



114 



RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS. 



[essay II. 



varices like scenes in a drama," that they have much less ten- 
dency to promote devotion than some men may suppose. No 
doubt they may possess an imposing effect, they may power- 
fully interest and affect the imagination ; but does not this 
partake too much of that factitious devotion of which we 
speak 1 Is it certain that such things have much tendency to 
purify the mind, and raise up within it a power that shall 
efficiently resist temptation ? 

Even if some benefits do result from the employment of 
these appendages of worship, they are not without their dan- 
gers and their evils. With respect to those which are ad- 
dressed to the senses, whether to the eye or ear, there is ob- 
viously a danger that like other sensible objects they will 
withdraw the mind from its proper business — the cultivation 
of pure religious affection towards God. And respecting the 
formularies of devotion, it has been said by a writer, whom 
none will suspect of overstating their evils, "The arrogant 
man, as if like the dervise in the Persian fable, he had shot 
his soul into the character he assumes, repeats, with complete 
self-application, Lord, J am not high-minded : the trifler says, 
/ hate vain thoughts : the irreligious, Lord, how I love thy law : 
he who seldom prays at all, confidently repeats, All the day 
long 1 am occupied in thy statutes* These are not light con- 
siderations : here is insincerity and untruths ; and insincerity 
and untruths, it should be remembered, in the place and at 
the time when we profess to be humbled in the presence 
of God. The evils too are inseparable from the system. 
Wherever preconcerted formularies are introduced, there will 
always be some persons who join in Vhe use of them without 
propriety, or sincerity or decorum. Nor are the evils much 
extenuated by the hope which has been suggested, that " the 
holy vehicle of their hypocrisy may be made that of their 
conversion." It is very Christian-like to indulge this hope, 
though I fear it is not very reasonable. Hypocrisy is itself 
an offence against God ; and it can scarcely be expected that 
any thing so immediately connected with the offence will 
often effect such an end. 

It is not, however, in the case of those who use these 
forms in a maimer positively hypocritical, that the greatest 
evil and danger consists : " There is a kind of mechanical 
memory in the tongue, which runs over the form without any 
aid of the understanding, without any concurrence of the will, 
without any consent of the affections ; for do we not some- 



* More's Mora] Sketches, 3d Ed. p. 429. 



CHAP. I.] 



RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS. 



115 



times implore God to hear a prayer to which we are ourselves 
not attending ?"* We have sufficient reason for knowing that 
to draw nigh to God with our lips whilst our hearts are far 
from him, is a serious offence in his sight ; and when it is 
considered how powerful is the tendency of oft-repeated words 
to lose their practical connexion with feelings and ideas, it is 
to be feared that this class of evils, resulting from the use of 
forms, is of very wide extent. Nor is it to be forgotten, that 
as even religious persons sometimes employ " the form with- 
out any aid of the understanding," so others are in danger of 
substituting the form for the reality, and of imagining that, if 
they are exemplary in the observance of the externals of de- 
votion, the work of religion is done. 

Such circumstances may reasonably make us hesitate in 
deciding the question of the propriety of these external things, 
as a question of expediency. They may reasonably make us 
do more than this ; for does Christianity allow us to invent a 
system, of which some of the consequences are so bad, for 
the sake of a beneficial end ? 

Forms of prayer have been supposed to rest on an authority 
somewhat more definite than that of other religious forms. 
" The Lord's Prayer is a precedent, as well as a pattern, for 
forms of prayer. Our Lord appears, if not to have prescribed, 
at least to have authorized the use of fixed forms, when he 
complied with the request of the disciple who said unto him, 
Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. "f 
If we turn to Matt, vi., where the fullest account is given of 
the subject, we are, I think, presented with a different view. 
Our Saviour, who had been instituting his more perfect laws 
in place of the doctrines which had been taught of old time, 
proceeded to the prevalent mode of giving alms, of praying, 
of fasting, and of laying up wealth. He first describes these 
modes, and then directs in what manner Christians ought to 
give alms, and pray and fast. Now, if it be contended that 
he requires us to employ that particular form of prayer which 
he then dictated, it must also be contended that he requires 
us to adopt that particular mode of - giving money which he 
described, and those particular actions, when fasting, which 
he mentions. If we are obliged to use the form of prayer, 
we are obliged to give money in secret ; and when we fast, to 
put oil upon our heads. If these particular modes were not 
enjoined, neither is the form of prayer ■ and the Scriptures 
contain no indication that this form was ever used at all, either 

* More's Moral Sketches, 3d Ed. p. 327. 
t Mor. and Pol. Phil. p. 3. b. 5. c. 5. 



116 



RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS. 



[essay in. 



by the apostles or their converts. But if the argument only 
asserts that fixed forms are " authorized" by the language of 
Christ, the question becomes a question merely of expediency. 
Supposing that they .are authorized, they are to be employed 
only if they are useful. Even in this view, it may be re- 
marked that there is no reason to suppose, from the Christian 
Scriptures, that either Christ himself or his apostles ever 
used a fixed form. If he had designed to authorize, and 
therefore to recommend their adoption, is it not probable that 
some indications of their having been employed would be 
presented ? But instead of this, we find that every prayer 
which is recorded in the volume was delivered extempore, 
upon the then occasion, and arising out of the then existing 
circumstances. 

Yet after all, the important question is not between precon- 
certed and extempore prayer as such, but whether any prayer 
is proper and right but that which is elicited by the influence 
of the Divine power. The enquiry into this solemn subject 
would lead us too wide from our general business. The 
truth, however, that " we know not what to pray for as we 
ought," is as truly applicable to extempore as to formal prayer. 
Words merely do not constitute prayer, whether they be pre- 
pared beforehand, or conceived at the moment they are ad- 
dressed. There is reason to believe that he only offers per- 
fectly acceptable supplications, who offers them " according 
to the will of God," and " of the ability which God giveth :" — 
and if such be indeed the truth, it is scarcely compatible 
either with a prescribed form of words, or with extempore 
prayer at prescribed times. — Yet if any Christian, in the piety 
of his heart, believes it to be most conducive to his religious 
interests to pray at stated times or in fixed forms, far be it 
from me to censure this the mode of his devotion, or to as- 
sume that his petition will not obtain access to the Universal 
Lord. 

Finally, respecting uncommanded ceremonials and rituals 
of all kinds, and respecting all the appendages of public wor- 
ship which have been adopted as helps to devotion, there is 
one truth to which perhaps every good man will assent — 
that, if religion possessed its sufficient and rightful influence, 
if devotion of the heart were duly maintained without these 
things, they would no longer be needed. He who enjoys the 
vigorous exercise of his limbs, is encumbered by the employ- 
ment of a crutch. Whether the Christian world is yet pre- 
pared for the relinquishment of these appendages and " helps" 
— whether an equal degree of efficacious religion would be 



CHAP. I.] 



RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS. 



117 



maintained without them — are questions which I presumed 
not to determine : but it may nevertheless be decided, that 
this is the state of the Christian church to which we should 
direct our hopes and our endeavours — and that Christianity 
will never possess its proper influence, and will not effect its 
destined objects, until the internal dedication of the heart is 
universally attained. 

To those who may sometimes be brought into contact with 
persons who profess scepticism respecting Christianity, and 
especially to those who are conscious of any tendency in 
their own minds to listen to the objections of these persons, 
it may be useful to observe, that the grounds upon which 
sceptics build their disbelief of Christianity, are commonly 
very slight. The number is comparatively few whose opin- 
ions are the result of anv tolerable degree of investigation. 
They embraced sceptical notions through the means which 
they now take of diffusing them amongst others — not by ar- 
guments but jests ; not by objections to the historical evidence 
of Christianity, but by conceits and witticisms ; not by exam- 
ining the nature of religion as it was delivered by its Founder, 
but by exposing the conduct of those who profess it. Per- 
haps the seeming paradox is true, that no men are so credu- 
lous, that no men accept important propositions upon such 
slender evidence, as the majority of those who reject Chris- 
tianity. To believe that the religious opinions of almost all 
the civilized Avorld are foimded upon imposture, is to believe 
an important proposition ; a proposition which no man, who 
properly employs his faculties, would believe without consid- 
erable weight of evidence. But what is the evidence upon 
which the " unfledged witlings who essay their wanton efforts" 
against religion, usually found their notions ? Alas ! they are 
so far from having rejected Christianity upon the examination 
of its evidence, that they do not know what Christianity is. 
To disbelieve the religion of Christianity upon grounds which 
shall be creditable to the understanding, involves no light 
task. A man must investigate and scrutinize ; he must ex- 
amine the credibility of testimony ; he must weigh and com- 
pare evidence ; he must enquire into the reality of historical 
facts. If, after rationally doing all this, he disbelieves in 
Christianity — be it so. I think him, doubtless, mistaken, but 
I do not think him puerile and credulous. But he who pro- 
fesses scepticism without any of this species of enquiry, is 
credulous and puerile indeed ; and such most sceptics actually 
are. " Concerning unbelievers and doubters of every class, 



118 



RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS. 



[ESSAY II. 



one observation may almost universally be made with truth, 
that they are little acquainted with the nature of the Christian 
religion, and still less with the evidence by which it is sup- 
ported."* In France, scepticism has extended itself as widely 
perhaps as in any country in the world, and its philosophers, 
forty or fifty years ago, were ranked amongst the most intelli- 
gent and sagacious of mankind. And upon what grounds 
did these men reject Christianity 1 Dr. Priestly went with 
Lord Shelburne to France, and he says, " I had an opportu- 
nity of seeing and conversing with every person of eminence 
wherever we came :" I found " all the philosophical persons 
to whom I was introduced at Paris, unbelievers in Christian- 
ity, and even professed atheists. As I chose on all occa- 
sions to appear as a Christian, I was told by some of them 
that I was the only person they had ever met with, of whose 
understanding they had any opinion, who professed to believe 
in Christianity. But on interrogating them on the subject, I 
soon found that they had given no proper attention t§ it, and 
did not really know what Christianity was. This was also 
the case with a great part of the company that I saw at Lord 
Shelburne's."f If these philosophical men rejected Christi- 
anity in such contemptible and shameful ignorance of its na- 
ture and evidences, upon what grounds are we to suppose the 
ordinary striplings of infidelity reject it ? 

How then does it happen that those who affect scepticism 
are so ambitious to make their scepticism known 1 Because 
it is a short and easy road to distinction ; because it affords 
a cheap means of gratifying vanity. To " rise above vulgar 
prejudices and superstitions" — " to entertain enlarged and 
liberal opinions," are phrases of great attraction, especially to 
young men ; and how shall they show that they rise above 
vulgar prejudices, how shall they so easily manifest the en- 
largement of their views, as by rejecting a system Avhich all 
their neighbours agree to be true 1 They feel important to 
themselves, and that they are objects of curiosity to others : 
and they are objects of curiosity, not on account of their own 
qualities, but on account of the greatness of that which they 
contemn. The peasant who reviles a peasant, may revile 
him without an auditor, but a province will listen to him who 
vilifies a king. I know not that an intelligent person should 
be advised to reason with these puny assailants : their notions 
and their conduct are not the result of reasoning. What 
they need is the humiliation of vanity and the exposure of 



* Gisborne's Duties of Men. 



t Memoirs of Dr. Priestly. 



CHAP. II.] 



RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS. 



119 



folly. A few simple interrogations would expose their folly ; 
and for the purposes of humiliation, simply pass them by. 
The sun that shines upon them, makes them look bright and 
large. Let reason and truth withdraw their rays, and these 
seeming stars will quickly set in silence and in darkness. 

More contemptible motives to the profession of infidelity 
cannot perhaps exist, but there are some which are more de- 
testable. Hartley says that " the strictness and purity of the 
Christian religion in respect to sexual licentiousness, is pro- 
bably the chief thing which makes vicious men first fear and 
hate, and then vilify and oppose it."* 

Whether therefore we regard the motives which lead to 
scepticism, or the reasonableness of the grounds upon which 
it is commonly founded, there is surely much reason for an 
ingenious young person to hold in contempt the jests, and 
pleasantries, and sophistries respecting revelation with which 
he may be assailed. 



CHAPTER II. 
PROPERTY. 

Foundation of the Right to Property — Insolvency : Perpetual obligation 
to pay debts: Reform of public opinion : Examples of integrity — Wills, 
Legatees, Hehs : Informal Wills : Intestates — Charitable Bequests — 
Minor's debts — A Wife's debts — Bills of Exchange — Shipment — Dis- 
traints — Unjust defendants — Extortion — Slaves — Privateers — Confisca- 
tions — Public money — Insurance — Improvements on estates — Settle- 
ments — Houses of infamy — Literary property — Rewards. 

Disquisitions respecting the Origin of Property appear to 
be of little use ; partly because the origin can scarcely be de- 
termined, and partly because, if it could be determined, the 
discovery would be little applicable to the present condition 
of human affairs. In whatever manner an estate was acquired 
two thousand years ago, it is of no consequence in enquiring 
who ought to possess it now. 

The foundation of the Right of Property is a more impor- 
tant point. Ordinarily, the foundation is the law of the land. 
Of Civil Government— which institution is sanctioned by the 
divine will — one of the great offices is, to regulate the distri- 
bution of* property ; to give it, if it has the power of giving ; 

* Observations on Man. 



120 



PROPERTY. 



[ESSAY II. 



or to decide between opposing claimants, to whom it shall be 
assigned. 

The proposition therefore, as a general rule, is sound ; — 
He possesses a right to property to whom the law of the land as- 
signs it. This however is only a general rule. It has been 
sufficiently seen that some legal possessions are not permitted 
by the Moral Law. The occasional opposition between the 
moral and the legal right to property, is inseparable from the 
principle on which law is founded — that of acting upon gen- 
eral rules. It is impossible to frame any rule, the application 
of which shall, in every variety of circumstances, effect the 
requisitions of Christian morality. A rule which in nine 
cases proves equitable, may prove utterly unjust in the tenth. 
A rule which in nine cases promotes the welfare of the citi- 
zen, may in the tenth outrage reason and humanity. 

It is evident that in the present state of legal institutions, 
the evils which result from laws respecting property must be 
prevented, if they are prevented at all, by the exercise of 
virtue in individuals. If the law assigns a hundred pounds 
to me, which every upright man perceives ought in equity to 
have been assigned to another, that other has no means of en- 
forcing his claim. Either therefore the claim of equity must 
be disregarded, or I must voluntarily satisfy it. 

There are many cases connected with the acquisition or 
retention of property, with which the decisions of law are 
not immediately connected, but respecting which it is need- 
ful to exercise a careful discrimination, in order to con- 
form to the requisitions of Christian rectitude. The whole 
subject is of great interest, and of extensive practical appli- 
cation in the intercourse of life. The reader will therefore be 
presented with several miscellaneous examples, in which the 
Moral Law appears to require greater purity of rectitude 
than is required by statutes, or than is ordinarily practised by 
mankind. 

Insolvency. — Why is a man obliged to pay his debts 1 It 
is to be hoped that the morality of few persons is lax enough 
to reply — Because the law compels him. But why, then, is 
he obliged to pay them ? Because the Moral Law requires 
it. That this is the primary ground of the obligation is evi- 
dent ; otherwise the payment of any debt "which a vi- 
cious or corrupt legislature resolved to cancel, would cease to 
be obligatory upon the debtor. The Virginian statute, wmich 
we noticed in the last Essay, would have been a ^uflicient 
justification to the planters to defraud their creditors. 

A man becomes insolvent and is made a bankrupt : he pays 



CHAP J I.] 



PROPERTY. 



121 



his creditors ten shillings instead of twenty, and obtains his 
certificate. The law, therefore, discharges him from the ob- 
ligation to pay more. The bankrupt receives a large legacy, 
or he engages in business and acquires property. Being then 
able to pay the remainder of his debts, does the legal dis- 
charge exempt him from the obligation to pay them ? No : 
and for this reason that the legal discharge is not a moral 
discharge ; that as the duty to pay at all was not founded 
primarily on the law, the law cannot warrant him in with- 
holding a part. 

It is however said, that the creditors have relinquished 
their right to the remainder by signing the certificate. But 
why did they accept half their demands instead of the whole 1 
Because they were obliged to do it ; they could get no more. 
As to granting the certificate, they do it because to withhold 
it would be only an act of gratuitous unkindness. It would 
be preposterous to say that creditors relinquish their claims 
voluntarily ; for no one would give up his claim to twenty 
shillings on the receipt of ten if he could get the other 
ten by refusing. It might as reasonably be said that a 
man parts with a limb voluntarily, because, having in- 
curably lacerated it, he submits to an amputation. It is 
to be remembered, too, that the necessary relinquishment 
of half the demand is occasioned by the debtor himself: 
and it seems very manifest that when a man, by his 
own act, deprives another of his property, he cannot allege 
the consequences of that act as a justification of withholding 
it after restoration is in his power. 

The mode in which an insolvent man obtains a discharge, 
does not appear to affect his subsequent duties. Composi- 
tions, and bankruptcies, and discharges by an insolvent act 
are in this respect alike. The acceptance of a part instead of 
the whole is not voluntary in either case ; and neither case 
exempts the debtor from the obligation to pay in full if he can. 

If it should be urged that when a person intrusts property to 
another, he knowingly undertakes the risk of that other's insol- 
vency, and that, if the contingent loss happens, he has no 
claims to justice on the other, the answer is this ; that what- 
ever may be thought of these claims, they are not the grounds 
upon which the debtor is obliged to pay. The debtor always 
engages to pay, and the engagement is enforced by morality ; 
the engagement therefore is binding, whatever risk another 
man may incur by relying upon it. The causes which have 
occasioned a person's insolvency, although they greatly affect 
his character, do not affect his obligations : the duty to repay 

11 



122 



PROPERTY. 



[ESSAY II. 



when he has the power, is the same whether the insolvency- 
were occasioned by his fault or his misfortune. In all cases, 
the reasoning that applies to the debt, applies also to the in- 
terest that accrues upon it ; although with respect to the ac- 
ceptance of both, and especially of interest, a creditor should 
exercise a considerate discretion. — A man who has failed of 
paying his debts ought always to live with frugality, and 
carefully to economize such money as he gains. He should 
reflect that he is a trustee for his creditors, and that all the 
needless money which he expends is not his but theirs. 

The amount of property which the trading part of a com- 
mercial nation loses by insolvency, is great enough to consti- 
tute a considerable national evil. The fraud, too, that is prac- 
tised under cover of insolvency, is doubtless the most exten- 
sive of all species of private robbery. The profligacy of 
some of these cases is well known to be extreme. He who 
is a bankrupt to-day, riots in the luxuries of affluence to-mor- 
row ; bows to the creditors whose money he is spending, and 
exults in the success and the impunity of his wickedness. 
Of such conduct we should not speak or think but with de- 
testation. We should no more sit at the table, or take the 
hand of such a man, than if we knew he had got his money 
last night on the highway. There is a wickedness in some 
bankruptcies to which the guilt of ordinary robbers approaches 
but at a distance. Happy, if such wickedness could not be 
practised with legal impunity !* Happy, if Public Opinion 
supplied the deficiency of the law and held the iniquity in 
rightful abhorrence !f 

Perhaps nothing would tend so efficaciously to diminish the 
general evils of insolvency, as a sound state of public opinion 
respecting the obligation to pay our debts. The insolvent 
who, with the means of paying, retains the money in his own 
pocket, is, and he should be regarded as being, a dishonest 
man. If Public Opinion held such conduct to be of the same 
character as theft, probably a more powerful motive to avoid 
insolvency would be established than any which now exists. 
Who would not anxiously (and therefore, in almost all cases, 
successfully) struggle against insolvency, when he knew that 
it would be followed, if not by permanent poverty, by per- 
manent disgrace ? If it should be said that to act upon such 
a system would overwhelm an insolvent's energies, keep him 
in perpetual inactivity, and deprive his family of the henefit 
of his exertions — I answer, that the evil, supposing it to im- 



* See the Hid Essay. 



CHAP. II.] 



PROPERTY. 



123 



pend, would be much less extensive than may be imagined. 
The calamity being foreseen, would prevent men from becom- 
ing insolvent ; and it is certain that the majority might have 
avoided insolvency by sufficient care. Besides, if a man's 
principles are such that he would rather sink into inactivity 
than exert himself in order to be just, it is not necessary to 
mould public opinion to his character. The question too is, 
not whether some men would not prefer indolence to the calls 
of justice, but whether the public should judge accurately res- 
pecting what those calls are. The state, and especially a fa- 
mily, might lose occasionally by this reform of opinion — and 
so they do by sending a man to New South Wales ; but who 
would think this a good reason for setting criminals at large ? 
And after all, much more would be gained by preventing in- 
solvency, than lost by the ill consequences upon the few who 
failed to pay their debts. 

It is cause of satisfaction that, respecting this rectified state 
of opinion, and respecting integrity of private virtue, some ex- 
amples are offered. There is one community of Christians 
which holds its members obliged to pay their debts whenever 
they possess the ability, without regard to the legal discharge.* 
By this means, there is thrown over the character of every 
bankrupt who possesses property, a shade which nothing but 
payment can dispel. The effect (in conjunction we may hope 
with private integrity of principle) is good — good, both in in- 
stituting a new motive to avoid insolvency, and in inducing 
some of those who do become insolvent, subsequently to pay 
all their debts. 

Of this latter effect many honourable instances might be 
given : two of which having fallen under my observation, I 
would briefly mention.- — A'man had become insolvent, I be- 
lieve in early life ; his creditors divided his property amongst 
them, and gave him a legal discharge. He appears to have 
formed the resolution to pay the remainder, if his own exer- 

* " Where any have injured others in their property, the greatest fru- 
gality should be observed by themselves and their families ; and although 
they may have a legal discharge from their creditors, both equity and our 
Christian profession demand, that none, when they have it in their power, 
should rest satisfied until a just restitution be made to those who have suf- 
fered by them." 

" And it is the judgment of this meeting, that monthly and other meet- 
ings ought not to receive collections or bequests for the use of the poor, 
or any other services of the Society, of persons who have fallen short in 
the payment of their just debts, though legally discharged by their credi- 
tors : for until such persons have paid the deficiency, their possessions can- 
not in equity be considered as their own." 

Official Documents of the Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends. 



124 



PROPERTY. 



[ESSAY II. 



tions should enable him to do it. He procured employment, 
by which however he never gained more than twenty shillings 
a-week ; and worked industriously and lived frugally for eigh- 
teen years. At the expiration of this time, he found he had 
accumulated enough to pay the remainder, and he sent the 
money to his creditors. Such a man, I think, might hope to 
derive, during the remainder of his life, greater satisfaction 
from the consciousness of integrity, than he would have de- 
rived from expending the money on himself. It should be 
told that many of his creditors, when they heard the circum- 
stances, declined to receive the money, or voluntarily pre- 
sented it to him again. One of these was my neighbour ; 
he had been little accustomed to exemplary virtue, and the 
proffered money astonished him : he talked in loud commen- 
dation of what to him was unheard-of integrity ; signed a re- 
ceipt for the amount, and sent it back as a present to the 
debtor. The other instance may furnish hints of a useful 
kind. It was the case of a female who had endeavoured to 
support herself by the profits of a shop. She however be- 
came insolvent, paid some dividend, and received a discharge. 
She again entered into business, and in the course of years 
had accumulated enough to pay the remainder of her debts. 
But the infirmities of age were now coming on, and the an- 
nual income from her savings was just sufficient for the wants 
of declining years. Being thus at present unable to discharge 
her obligations without subjecting herself to the necessity of 
obtaining relief from others ; she executed a will, directing 
that at her death the creditors should be paid the remainder 
of their demands : and when she died they were paid accord- 
ingly. 

Wills, Legatees, and Heirs. — The right of a person to 
order the distribution of his property after death, is recom- 
mended by its Utility ; and were this less manifest than it is, 
it would be sufficient for us that the right is established by 
civil government. 

It however happens in practice, that persons sometimes dis- 
tribute their property in a manner that is both unreasonable 
and unjust. This evil the law cannot easily remedy ; and con- 
sequently the duty of remedying it, devolves upon those to 
whom the property is bequeathed. If they do not prevent the 
injustice, it cannot be prevented. This indicates the proprie- 
ty, on the part of a legatee or an heir, of considering, when 
property devolves to him in a manner or in a proportion that 
appears improper, how he may exercise upright integrity, lest 
he should be the practical agent of injustice or oppression. 



CHAP. II.] 



PROPERTY. 



125 



Another cause for the exercise of this integrity consists in 
this circumstance : — When the right of a person to bequeath 
his property is admitted, it is evident that his intention ought 
in general to be the standard of his successor's conduct : and 
accordingly the law, in making enactments upon the subject, 
directs much of its solicitude to the means of ascertaining 
and of fulfilling the testator's int&tions. These intentions 
must, according to the existing systems of Jurisprudence, be 
ascertained by some general rules — by a written declaration 
perhaps, or a declaration of a specified kind, or made in a pre- 
scribed form, or attested in a particular manner. But in con- 
sequence of this it happens, that as through accident or inad- 
vertency a testator does not always comply with these forms, 
the law, which adheres to its rules, frustrates his intentions, 
and therefore, in effect, defeats its own object in prescribing 
the forms. Here again the intentions of the deceased and 
the demands of equity cannot be fulfilled, except by the vir- 
tuous integrity of heirs and legatees. 

I. If my father, who had one son besides myself, left nine- 
tenths of his property to me, and only the remaining tenth to 
my brother, I should not think the will, however authentic, 
justified me in taking so large a proportion, unless I could dis- 
cover some reasonable motive which influenced my father's 
mind. If my brother already possessed a fortune and I had 
none ; if I were married and had a numerous family ; and he 
were single and unlikely to marry ; if he was incurably ex- 
travagant, and would probably in a few weeks or months 
squander his patrimony ; in these, or in such circumstances, I 
should think myself at liberty to appropriate my father's be- 
quest : otherwise I should not. Thus, if the disproportionate 
division was the effect of some unreasonable prejudice against 
my brother, or fondness for me ; or if it was made at the un- 
fair instigation of another person, or in a temporary fit of pas- 
sion or disgust ; I could not, virtuously, enforce the will. 
The reason is plain. The will being unjust or extremely un- 
reasonable, I should be guilty of injustice or extreme unrea- 
sonableness in enforcing it. 

By the English law, the real estates of deceased persons 
are not available for the payment of debts of simple contract, 
unless they are made so by the will. The rule is, to be sure, 
sufficiently barbarous ; and he who intentionally forbears to 
make the estates available, dies, as has been properly observed 
with a deliberate fraud in his heart. But this fraud cannot 
be completed without the concurrence of a second person, the 
heir. He therefore is under a moral obligation to pay such 

11* 



126 



PROPERTY. 



[ESSAY II. 



debts out of the real estate, notwithstanding the deficiency 
of the will : for if the father was fraudulent in making such a 
will, the son is fraudulent in taking advantage of his parent's 
wickedness. He may act with strict legality in keeping the 
property, but he is condemned as dishonest by the Moral Law. 

II. A person bequeathes five hundred pounds to some 
charity — for example, to $ie Foundling — and directs that the 
money shall be laid out in land. His intention is indisputably 
plain : but the law, with certain motives, says, that the direc- 
tion to lay out the money in land makes the bequest void ; 
and it will not enforce the bequest. But, because the testator 
forgot this, can the residuary legatee honestly put the five 
hundred pounds into his own pocket ? Assuredly he cannot. 
The money is as truly the property of the Foundling as if the 
will had been accurately framed. The circumstance that the 
law will not compel him to give it up, although it may exempt 
him from an action, cannot exempt him from guilt. 

The law, either with reason or without it, prefers that an 
estate should descend to a brother's son rather than a sister's. 
Still it permits a man to leave it to his sister's son if he 
pleases ; and only requires that, when he wishes to do this, 
he shall have three witnesses to his will instead of two. The 
reader will remark that the object of this legal provision is, 
that the intention of the party shall be indisputably known. 
The legislature does not wish to control him in the disposi- 
tion of his property, but only to ascertain distinctly what his 
intention is. A will then is made, leaving an estate to a sis- 
ter's son, and is attested by two witnesses only. The omis- 
sion of the third is a matter of mere inadvertence : no doubt 
exists as to the person's intention or its reasonableness. Is 
it then consistent with integrity for the brother's son to take 
advantage of the omission, and to withhold the estate from his 
cousin 1 I think the conscience of every man will answer 
no : and if this be the fact, we need enquire no further. Upon 
such a subject, the concurrent dictates in the minds of men can 
scarcely be otherwise than true and just. But even critically, the 
same conclusion appears to follow. The law required three 
witnesses in order that the person's intention should be known. 
Now it is known : and therefore the very object of the law is 
attained. To take advantage of the omission is, in reality, to 
misapply the law. It is insisting upon its letter in opposition 
to its motives and design. Dr. Paley has decided this ques- 
tion otherwise, by a process of reasoning of which the basis 
does not appear very sound. He says that such a person has 
no " right" to dispose of the property, because the law con- 



CHAP. II.] 



PROPERTY. 



127 



ferred the right upon condition that he should have three wit- 
nesses, with which condition he has not complied. But sure- 
ly the " right " of disposing property is recognized generally 
by the law ; the requisition of three witnesses is not designed 
to confer a right, but to adjust the mode of exercising it. In- 
deed, Paley himself virtually gives up his own doctrine ; for 
he says he should hesitate in applying it, if " considerations 
of pity to distress, or duty to a parent, or of gratitude to a ben- 
efactor,''* would be disregarded by the application. Why 
should these considerations suspend the applicability of his 
doctrine ? Because Christianity obliges us to attend to them 
— which is the very truth we are urging : we say, the per- 
mission of the law is not a sufficient warrant to disregard the 
obligations of Christianity. 

A man who possesses five thousand pounds, has two sons, 
of whom John is well provided for, and Thomas is not. With 
the privity of his sons he makes a will, leaving four thousand 
pounds to Thomas and one to John, explaining to both the rea- 
son of this division. A fire happens in the house and the 
will is burnt ; and the father, before he has the opportunity of 
making another, is carried off by a fever. Now the English 
law would assign a half of the money to each brother. If 
John demands his half, is he a just man ? Every one I think 
will perceive that he is not, and that, if he demanded it, he 
would violate the duties of benevolence. The law is not his 
sufficient rule. 

A person whose near relations do not stand in need of his 
money, adopts the children of distant relatives, with the de- 
clared intention or manifest design of providing for them at 
his death. If, under such circumstances, he dies without a 
will, the heir at law could not morally avail himself of his le- 
gal privilege, to the injury of these expectant parties. They 
need the money, and he does not ; which is one good reason 
for not seizing it ; but the intention of the deceased invested 
them with a right ; and so that the intention is known, it mat- 
ters little to the moral obligation, whether it is expressed on 
paper or not. 

Possibly some reader may say, that if an heir or legatee 
must always institute enquiries into the uncertain claims of 
others before he accepts the property of the deceased, and if 
he is obliged to give up his own claims whenever their's seem 
to preponderate, he will be involved in endless doubts and 
scruples, and testators will never know whether their wills 



* Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 3, p. 1, c. 23. 



128 



PROPERTY. 



[ESSAY it 



will be executed or not : the answer is, that no such scrupu- 
lousness is demanded. Hardheartedness, and extreme unrea- 
sonableness, and injustice, are one class of considerations ; 
critical scruples, and uncertain claims, are another. 

It may be worth a paragraph to remark, that it is to be feared 
some persons think too complacently of their charitable be- 
quests, or, what is worse, hope that it is a species of good 
works which will counterbalance the offence of some present 
irregularities of conduct. Such bequests ought not to be dis- 
couraged ; and yet it should be remembered, that he who 
gives money after his death, parts with nothing of his own. 
He gives it only when he cannot retain it. The man who 
leaves his money for the single purpose of doing good, does 
right : but he who hopes that it is a work of merit, should re- 
member that the money is given, that the privation is endured, 
not by himself but by his heirs. A man who has more than he 
needs, should dispense it whilst it is his own. 

Minors' Debts. — A young man under twenty-one years 
of age purchases articles of a tradesman, of which some are 
necessary and some are not. Payment for unnecessary articles 
cannot be enforced by the English law — the reason with the 
Legislature being this, that thoughtless youths might be prac- 
tised upon by designing persons, and induced to make need- 
less and extravagant purchases. But is the youth who pur- 
chases unnecessary articles with the promise to pay when he 
becomes of age, exempted from the obligation 1 Now it is to 
be remembered, generally, that this obligation is not founded 
upon the Law of the Land, and therefore that the law cannot 
dispense with it. But if the tradesman has actually taken ad- 
vantage of the inexperience of a youth, to cajole him into 
debts of which he was not conscious of the amount or the im- 
propriety, it does not appear that he is obliged to pay them ; 
and for this reason, that he did not, in any proper sense of the 
term, come under an obligation to pay them. In other cases, 
the obligation remains. The circumstance that the law will 
not assist the creditor to recover th# money, does not dispense 
with it. It is fit, no doubt, that these dishonourable trades- 
men should be punished, though the mode of punishing them 
is exceptionable indeed. It operates as a powerful tempta- 
tion to fraud in young men, and it is a bad system to discourage 
dishonesty in one person by tempting the probity of another, 
The youth, too, is of all persons the last who should profit by 
the punishment of the trader. He is reprehensible himself: 
young men who contract such debts are seldom so young or 
so ignorant as not to know that they are doing wrong. 



CHAP. II.] 



PROPERTY. 



129 



A man's wife " runs him into debt " by extravagant pur- 
chases which he is alike unable to prevent or to afford. Many 
persons sell goods to such a woman, who are conscious of 
her habits and of the husband's situation, yet continue to sup- 
ply her extravagance, because they know the law will enable 
them to enforce payment from the husband. These persons act 
legally, but they are legally wicked. Do they act as they would 
desire others to act towards them ? Would one of these men 
wish another tradesman so to supply his own wife if she was 
notoriously a spendthrift ? If not, morality condemns his con- 
duct : and the laws, in effect, condemn it too ; for the Legislature 
would not have made husbands responsible for their wives' debts 
anymore than for their children's, but for the presumption that 
the wife generally buys what the husband approves . Debts of 
unprincipled extravagance, are not debts which the law in- 
tended to provide that the husband should pay. If all women 
contracted such debts, the Legislature would instantly alter 
the law. If the Legislature could have made the distinction, 
perhaps it would have made it ; since it did not or could not, 
the deficiency must be supplied by private integrity. 

Bills of Exchange. — The law of England provides, that 
if the possessor of a Bill of Exchange fails to demand pay- 
ment on the day on which it becomes due, he takes the re- 
sponsibility, in case of its eventual non-payment, from the pre- 
vious endorsers, and incurs it himself. This as a general 
rule may be just. A party may be able to pay to-day and un- 
able a week hence ; and if in such a case a loss arises by one 
man's negligence, it were manifestly unreasonable that it 
should be sustained by others. But if the acceptor becomes 
unable to pay a week or a month before the bill is due, the 
previous endorsers cannot in justice throw the loss upon the 
last possessor, even though he fails to^present it on the ap- 
pointed day. For why did the law make its provision ? In or- 
der to secure persons from the loss of their property by the 
negligence of others over whom they had no control. But, 
in the supposed case, the loss is not occasioned by any such 
cause, and therefore the spirit of the law does not apply to it. 
You are insisting upon its literal, in opposition to its just, in- 
terpretation. Whether the Bill was presented on the right 
day or the wrong, makes no difference to the previous en- 
dorsers, and for such a case the law was not made. 

A similar rule of virtue applies to the case of giving notice 
of refusal to accept or to pay. If, in consequence of the want 
of this notice, the party is subjected to loss, he may avail 
himself of the legal exemption from the last possessor's claim. 



130 



PROPERTY. 



[essay II. 



If the want of notice made no difference in his situation, he 
may not. 

Shipments. — The same principles apply to a circumstance 
which not unfrequently occurs amongst men of business, and 
in which integrity is, I think, very commonly sacrificed to in- 
terest. A tradesman in Falmouth is in the habit of purchas- 
ing goods of merchants in London, by whom the goods are 
forwarded in vessels to Falmouth. Now it is a rule of law 
founded upon established custom, that goods when shipped 
are at the risk of the buyer. The law, however, requires 
that an account of the shipment shall be sent to the buyer by 
post, in order that, if he thinks proper, he may insure his 
goods : and in order to effect this object, the law directs, that 
if the account be not sent, and the vessel is wrecked, it will 
not enforce payment from the buyer. All this as a general 
rule is just. But in the actual transactions of business, goods 
are very frequently sent by sea by an expressed or tacit agree- 
ment between the parties without notice by the post: The 
Falmouth tradesman then is in the habit of thus conducting 
the matter for a series of years. He habitually orders his 
goods to be sent by ship, and the merchant, as habitually, 
with the buyer's knowledge, sends the invoice with them. 
Of course the buyer is not in the habit of insuring. At length 
a vessel is wrecked and a package is lost. When the mer- 
chant applies for payment, the tradesman says — " No ; you 
sent no invoice by post : I shall not pay you, and I know you 
cannot compel me by law." Now this conduct I think is con- 
demned by morality. The man in Falmouth does not suffer 
any loss in consequence of the want of notice. He would not 
have insured if he had received it ; and therefore the inten- 
tion of the Legislature in withholding its assistance from the 
merchant, was not to provide for such a case. Thus to take 
advantage of the law without regard to its intention is unjust. 
Besides, the custom of sending the invoice with the goods ra- 
ther than by post, is for the advantage of the buyer only : — it 
saves him a shilling in postage. The understanding amongst 
men of business that the risk of loss at sea impends on buyers 
is so complete, that they habitually take that risk into ac- 
count in the profits which they demand on their goods : sellers 
do not ; and this again indicates the injustice of throwing the 
loss upon the seUer when an accident happens at sea. — Yet 
tradesmen^ I believe, rarely practice any other justice than 
that which the law Avill enforce ; as if not to be compelled by 
law were to be exempt from all moral obligation. It is hard- 
ly necessary to observe, that if the man in Falmouth was ac- 



CHAP. II.] 



PROPERTY. 



131 



tually prevented from insuring by the want of an invoice by 
post, he has a claim of justice as well as of law upon the mer- 
chant in London. 

Distraints. — It is well known that in distraints for rent, 
the law allows the landlord to seize whatever goods he finds 
upon the premises, without enquiring to whom they belong. 
And this rule, like many others, is as good as a general rule 
can be ; since an unprincipled tenant might easily contrive 
to make it appear that none of the property was his «own, and 
thus the landlord might be irremediably defrauded. Yet the 
landlord cannot always virtuously act upon the rule of law. 
A tenant who expects a distraint to-morrow, and of whose 
profligacy a lodger in the house has no suspicion, secretly 
removes his own goods in the night, and leaves the lodger's 
to be seized by the bailiff. The landlord ought not, as a mat- 
ter of course, to take these goods, and to leave a family per- 
haps without a table or a bed. The law indeed allows it ; 
but benevolence, but probity, does not. 

A man came to a friend of mine and proposed to take a 
number of his sheep to graze. My friend agreed with him, 
and sent the sheep. The next day these sheep were seized 
by the man's landlord for rent. It was an artifice precon- 
certed between the landlord and the tenant in order that the 
rent might be paid out of my friend's pocket ! Did this land- 
lord act justly ? The reader says, " No, he deserved a 
prison." And yet the seizure was permitted by the law; and 
if morality did not possess an authority superior to law, the 
seizure would have been just. Now, in less flagitious in- 
stances, the same regard to the dictates of morality is to be 
maintained notwithstanding the permissions of law.- — The con- 
trivers of this abandoned iniquity possessed the effrontery to 
come afterwards to the gentleman whom they had defrauded, 
to offer to compound the matter ; to send back the sheep 
which were of the value perhaps of fifty pounds, if he would 
give them thirty pounds in money. He refused to counte- 
nance such wickedness by the remotest implication, and sent 
them away to enjoy all their plunder. 

Theoretically, perhaps no seizures are unjust when no fraud 
is practised by the landlord, because persons who entrust 
their property on the premises of another, are supposed to 
know the risk, and voluntarily to undertake it. But, in prac- 
tice, this risk is often not thought of and not known. Besides, 
mere justice is not the only thing which a landlord has to 
take into account. The authority which requires us to be 
just, requires us to be compassionate and kind. And here, as 



132 



PROPERTY. 



[ESSAY II. 



in many other cases, it may be remarked, that the object of 
the law in allowing landlords to seize whatever they find, 
was to protect them from fraud, and not to facilitate the op- 
pression of under-tenants and others. If the first tenant has 
practised no fraud, it seems a violation of the intention of the 
law, to enforce it against those who happen to have entrusted 
their property in his hands. 

Unjust Defendants. — It does not present a very favour- 
able view of the state of private principle, that there are so 
many who refuse justice to plaintiffs unless they are com- 
pelled to be just by the law. It is indisputable, that a multi- 
tude of suits are undertaken in order to obtain property or 
rights which the defendant knows he ought voluntarily to give 
up. Such a person is certainly a dishonest man. When the 
verdict is given against him, I regard him in the light of a 
convicted robber — differing from other robbers in the circum- 
stance that he is tried at Nisi prius instead of the Crown bar. 
For what is the difference between him who takes what is 
another's and him who withholds it ? This severity of cen- 
sure applies to some who are sued for damages. A man who, 
whether by design or inadvertency, has injured another, and 
will not compensate him unless he is legally compelled to do 
it, is surely unjust. Yet many of these persons seem to think 
that injury to property, or person, or character, entails no 
duty to make reparation except it be enforced. Why, the 
law does not create this duty, it only compels us to fulfil it. 
If the minds of such persons were under the influence of in- 
tegrity, they would pay such debts without compulsion. — This 
subject is one amongst the many upon which Public Opinion 
needs to be aroused and to be rectified. When our estimates 
of moral character are adjusted to individual probity of prin- 
ciple, some of those who now pass in society as creditable 
persons, will be placed at the same point on the scale of mo- 
rality, as many of those who are consigned to a jail. 

Extortion. — It is a very common thing for a creditor who 
cannot obtain payment from the person who owes him money, 
to practise a species of extortion upon his relations or friends. 
The man perhaps is insolvent and unable to pay, and the 
creditor threatens to imprison him in order to induce his 
friends to pay the money rather than allow him to be immured 
in a jail. This is not honest. Why should a person be de- 
prived of his property because he has a regard for the repu- 
tation and comfort of another man ? It will be said that the 
debtor's friends pay voluntarily ; but it is only with that sort 
of willingness with which a traveller gives his purse to a 



CHAP. II.] 



PROPERTY. 



133 



footpad, rather than be violently assaulted or perhaps killed. 
Both the footpad and the creditor are extortioners — one ob- 
tains money by threatening mischief to the person, and the 
other by threatening pain to the mind. We do not say that 
their actions are equal in flagitiousness, but we say that both 
are criminal. — It is said that, after the death of Sheridan, and 
when a number of men of rank were assembled to attend his 
funeral, a person elegantly dressed and stating himself to be 
a relation of the deceased, entered the chamber of death. He 
urgently entreated to be allowed to view the face of his de- 
parted friend, and the coffin lid was unscrewed. The stranger 
pulled a warrant out of his pocket and arrested the body. It 
was probably a concerted scheme to obtain a sum (which it 
is supposed was five hundred pounds) that had been owing 
by the deceased. The creditor doubtless expected that a 
number of men of fortune would be present, who would pre- 
fer losing five hundred pounds to suffering the remains of their 
friend to be consigned to the police. The extortioner was 
successful : it is said that Lord Sidmouth and another gentle- 
man paid the money. Was this creditor an honest man ? If 
courts of Equity had existed adapted to such cases, and the 
man were prosecuted, the consciences of a jury would surely 
have impelled them to send him to Newgate. 

Slaves. — If a person left me an estate in Virginia or the 
West Indies, with a hundred slaves, the law of the land allows 
me to keep possession of both ; the Moral Law does not. I 
should therefore hold myself imperatively obliged to give 
these persons their liberty. I do not say that I would manu- 
mit them all the next day ; but if I deferred their liberation, 
it ought to be for their sakes, not my own : just as if I had a 
thousand pounds for a minor, my motive in withholding it 
from him would be exclusively his own advantage. Some 
persons who perceive the flagitiousness of slavery, retain 
slaves. Much forbearance of thought and language should 
be observed towards the man, in whose mind perhaps there 
is a strong conflict between conscience and the difficulty or 
loss which might attend a regard to its dictates. I have met 
with a feeling and benevolent person who owned several hun- 
dred slaves, and who, I believe, secretly lamented his own 
situation. I would be slow in censuring such a man, and 
yet it ought not to be concealed, that if he complied with the 
requisitions of the Moral Law, he would at least hasten to 
prepare them for emancipation. To endeavour to extricate 
oneself from the difficulty by selling the slaves, were self-im- 
position. A man may as well keep them in bondage himself 

12 



134 



PROPERTY. 



[ESSAY II. 



as sell them to another who would keep them in it. A nar- 
rative has appeared in print of the conduct of a gentleman to 
whom a number of slaves had been bequeathed, and who 
acted towards them upon the principles which rectitude re- 
quires. He conveyed them to some other country, educated 
some, procured employment for others, and acted as a Chris- 
tian towards all. 

Upon similar grounds, an upright man should not accept a 
present of a hundred pounds from a person who had not paid 
his debts, nor become his legatee. If the money were not 
rightfully his, he cannot give it ; if it be rightfully his credit- 
ors' it cannot be mine. 

Privateers. — Although familiarity with war occasions 
many obliquities in the moral notions of a people, yet "the 
silent verdict of public opinion is, I think, against the recti- 
tude of privateering. It is not regarded as creditable and 
virtuous ; and this public disapprobation appears to be on the 
increase. Considerable exertion at least has been made, on 
the part of the American government, to abolish it. — To this 
private plunderer himself I do not talk of the obligations of 
morality; he has many lessons of virtue to learn before he 
will be likely to listen to such virtue as it is the object of 
these pages to recommend : but to him who perceives the 
flagitiousness of the practice, I would urge the consideration 
that he ought not to receive the plunder of a privateer even 
at second hand. If a man ought not to be the legatee of a 
bankrupt, he ought not to be the legatee of him who gained 
his money by privateering. Yet it is to be feared that many 
who would not fit out a privateer, would accept the money 
Avhich the owners had stolen. If it be stolen, it is not theirs 
to give ; and what one has no right to give, another has no 
right to accept. 

During one of our wars with France, a gentleman who en- 
tertained such views of integrity as these was partner in a 
merchant vessel, and, in spite of his representations, the other 
owners resolved to fit her out as a privateer. They did so, 
and she happened to capture several vessels. This gentle- 
man received from time to time his share of the prizes, and 
laid it by ; till, at the conclusion of the war, it amounted to a 
considerable sum. What was to be done with the money ? 
He felt that, as an upright man, he could not retain the money ; 
and he accordingly went to France, advertised for the owners 
of the captured vessels, and returned to them the amount. 
Such conduct, instead of being a matter for good men to ad- 
mire, and for men of loose morality to regard as needless 



CHAP. II.] 



PROPERTY. 



135 



scrupulosity, ought, when such circumstances arise, to be an 
ordinary occurrence. I do not relate the fact because I think 
it entitles the party to any extraordinary praise. He was 
honest ; and honesty was his duty. The praise, if praise be 
due, consists in this — that he was upright where most men 
would have been unjust. Similar integrity upon parallel sub- 
jects may often be exhibited again — upon privateering it can- 
not often be repeated ; for when the virtue of the public is 
great enough to make such integrity frequent, it will be great 
enough to frown privateering from the world. 

At the time of war with the Dutch, about forty years ago, 
an English merchant vessel captured a Dutch Indiaman. It 
happened that one of the owners of the merchantman was one 
of the Society of Friends or Quakers. This society, as it 
objects to war, does not permit its members to share in such 
a manner in the profits of war. However, this person, when 
he heard of the capture, insured his share of the prize. The 
vessel could not be brought into port, and he received of the 
underwriters eighteen hundred pounds. To have retained 
this money would have been equivalent to quitting the society, 
so he gave it to his friends to dispose of it as justice might 
appear to prescribe. The state of public affairs on the Con- 
tinent did not allow the trustees immediately to take any ac- 
tive measures to discover the owners of the captured vessel. 
The money, therefore, was allowed to accumulate. At the 
termination of the war with France, the circumstances of the 
case were repeatedly published in the Dutch journals, and 
the full amount of every claim that has been clearly made out 
has been paid by the trustees. 

Confiscations. — I do not know whether the -history of 
confiscations affords any examples of persons who refused to 
accept the confiscated property. Yet, when it is considered 
under what circumstances these seizures are frequently made 
■ — of revolution and civil war, and the like, when the vindic- 
tive passions overpower the claims of justice and humanity — 
it cannot be doubted that the acceptance of confiscated pro- 
perty has sometimes been an act irreconcilable with integrity. 
Look, for example, at the confiscations of the French Revo- 
lution. The Government which at the moment held the reins, 
doubtless sanctioned the appropriation of the property which 
they seized ; and in so far the acceptance was legal. But 
that surely is not sufficient. Let an upright man suppose 
himself to be the neighbour of another, who, with his family, 
enjoys the comforts of a paternal estate. In the distractions 
of political turbulence this neighbour is carried off and ban- 



136 



PROPERTY. 



[essay II. 



ished, and the estate is seized by order of the government. 
Would such a man accept this estate when the government 
offered it, without enquiry and consideration ? Would he sit 
down in the warm comforts of plenty, whilst his neighbour 
was wandering, destitute perhaps, in another land, and whilst 
his family were in sorrow and in want. Would he not con- 
sider whether the confiscation was consistent with justice 
and rectitude — and whether, if it were right with respect to 
the man, it was right with respect to his children and his 
wife, who perhaps did not participate in his offences ? It 
may serve to give clearness to our perception to consider, 
that if Louis XVII. had been restored to the throne soon after 
his father's death, it is probable that many of the emigrants 
would have been reinstated in their possessions. Louis's 
restoration might have been the result of some intrigue, or of 
a battle. Do, then, the obligations of mankind as to enjoying 
the property of another, depend on such circumstances as bat- 
tles and intrigues 1 If the returning emigrant would have 
rightfully repossessed his estate if the battle was successful, 
can the present occupier rightfully possess it if the battle is 
not successful ? Is the result of a political manoeuvre a pro- 
per rule to guide a man's conscience in retaining or giving 
up the houses and lands of his neighbours ? Politicians, and 
those who profit by confiscations, may be little influenced by 
considerations like these \ but there are other men, who, I 
think, will perceive that they are important, and who, though 
confiscated property may never be offered to them, will be able 
to apply the principles which these considerations illustrate, 
to their own conduct in other affairs. 

It is worthy of observation that in our own country, " of all 
the persons who were enriched by the spoils of the religious 
houses, there was not one who suffered for his opinions dur- 
ing the persecution."* How can this be accounted for, ex- 
cept upon the presumption that those who were so willing to 
accept these spoils, were not remarkable for their fidelity to 
religion I 

Public Money. — Some writers on political affairs declaim 
much against sinecures and " places ;" not always remember- 
ing that these things may be only modes of paying, and of 
justly paying, the servants of the public. It would, no doubt, 
be preferable that he who is rewarded for serving the public 
should be rewarded avowedly as such, and not by the salary 
of a nominal office, which is always filled whether the re- 



* Southey's Book of the Church, vol 2. 



CHAP. II.] 



PROPERTY. 



137 



ceiver deserves the money or not. Such a mode of remuner- 
ation would be more reasonable in itself, and more satisfac- 
tory to the people. However, if public men deserve the money 
they receive, the name by which the salary is designated is 
not of much concern. The great point is the desert. That 
this ought to be a great point with a government there can be 
no doubt ; and it is indeed upon governments that writers are 
wont to urge the obligation. 

But our business is with the receivers. May a person, 
morally, appropriate to his own use any amount of money 
which a government chooses to give him? No. Then, when 
the public money is offered to any man, he is bound in con- 
science to consider whether he is in equity entitled to it or 
not. If, not being entitled, he accepts it, he is not an upright 
man. For who gives it to him ? The government ; that is, 
the trustee for the public. A government is in a situation not 
dissimilar to that of a trustee for a minor. It has no right to 
dispose of the public property according to its own will. 
Whatever it expends, except with a view to the public advan- 
tage, is to be regarded as so much fraud ; and it is quite mani- 
fest that if the government has no right to give, the private 
person can have no right to receive. I know of no exception 
to the application of these remarks, except where the public 
have expressly delivered up a certain amount of revenue to 
be applied according to the inclination of the governing power. 

Now, the equity of an individual's claims upon the public 
property must be founded upon his services to the public : not 
upon his services to a minister, not upon the partiality of a 
prince ; but upon services actually performed or performing 
for the public* The degree in which familiarity with an ill 
custom diminishes our estimate of its viciousness is wonder- 
ful. If you propose to a man to come to some understanding 
with a guardian, by which he shall get a hundred pounds out 
of a ward's estate, he starts from you with abhorrence. Yet 
that same man, if a minister should offer him ten times as 
much of the public property, puts it complacently and thank- 
fully into his pocket. Is this consistency? Is it uprightness ? 

In estimating the recompence to which public men are 
entitled, let the principles by all means be liberal. Let them 
be well paid : but let the money be paid, not given ; let it be 
the discharge of a debt, not the making of a present. And 
were I a servant of the public, I should not assume as of } 

* It is not necessary that these services should have been personal. 
The widow or son of a man who had been inadequately remunerated du- 
ring his life, mav very properlv accept a competent pension from the State 

12* 



138 



PROPERTY. 



[ESSAY II. 



course, that whatever remuneration the government was dis- 
posed to give, it would be right for me to receive. I should 
think myself obliged to consider for myself : and without 
affecting a trifling scrupulousness, I could not with integrity 
receive two thousand a year, if I knew that I was handsomely 
remunerated by one. These principles of conduct do not 
appear to lose their application in respect of fixed salaries or 
perquisites that are attached to offices. If a man cannot up- 
rightly take two thousand pounds when he knows he is enti- 
tled to but one, it cannot be made right by the circumstance 
that others have taken it before him, or that all take it who 
accept office. The income may be exorbitantly dispropor- 
tioned, not merely to the labour of the office, but to the total 
services of the individual. Nor, I think, do these principles 
lose their application, even when, as in this country, a sum is 
voted by the Legislature for the Civil List, and when it is out 
of this voted sum that the salaries are paid. You say — the 
representatives of the people gave the individual the money. 
Very well — yet even this may be true in theory rather than 
in fact. But who pretends that, when the votes for the Civil 
List are made in the House of Commons, its members ac- 
tually consider whether the individuals to whom the money 
will be distributed are in equity entitled to it or not ? — The 
question is very simple at last — whether a person may vir- 
tuously accept the money of the public, without having ren- 
dered proportionate services to the public ? There have been 
examples of persons who have voluntarily declined to receive 
the whole of the sums allotted to them by the government ; and 
when these sums were manifestly disproportionate to the 
claims of the parties, or unreasonable when compared with 
the privations of the people, such sacrifices approve them- 
selves to the feelings and consciences of the public. We 
feel that they are just and right ; and this feeling outweighs 
in authority a hundred arguments by which men may attempt 
to defend themselves in the contrary practice. 

Those large salaries which are given by way of " support- 
ing the dignity of public functionaries," are not I think recon- 
cilable with propriety nor dictated by necessity. At any 
rate, there must be some sorrowful want of purity in political 
affairs, if an ambassador or a prime minister is indebted for 
any part of his efficiency to these dignities and splendours. 
If the necessity for them is not imaginary, it ought to be ; and 
it may be doubted whether, even now, a minister of integrity 
who could not afford the customary splendours of his office, 
would not possess as much weight in his own country and 



CHAP. II.] 



PROPERTY. 



139 



amongst other nations, as if he were surrounded with magni- 
ficence. Who feels disrespect towards the great officers of 
the American government ? And yet their salaries are incom- 
parably smaller than those of some of the inferior ministers 
in Europe. 

Insurance. — It is very possible for a man to act dishon- 
estly every day and yet never to defraud another of a shilling. 
A merchant who conducts his business partly or wholly with 
borrowed capital, is not honest if he endangers the loss of an 
amount of property which, if lost, would disable him from 
paying his debts. He who possesses a thousand pounds of 
his own and borrows a thousand of some one else, cannot 
virtuously speculate so extensively as that, if his prospects 
should be disappointed, he would lose twelve hundred. The 
speculation is dishonest whether it succeeds or not : it is risk- 
ing other men's property without their consent. Under simi- 
lar circumstances it is unjust not to insure. Perhaps the 
majority of uninsured traders, if their houses and goods were 
burnt, would be unable to pay their creditors. The injustice 
consists not in the actual loss which may be inflicted, (for 
whether a fire happens or not, the injustice is the same,) but 
in endangering the infliction of the loss. There are but two 
ways in which, under such circumstances, the claims of rec- 
titude can be satisfied — one is by not endangering the property, 
and the other by telling its actual owner that it will be en- 
dangered, and leaving him to incur the risk or not as he 
pleases. 

" Those who hold the property of others are not warranted, 
on the principles of justice, in neglecting to inform themselves 
from time to time, of the real situation of their affairs. "* This 
enforces the doctrines which we have delivered. It asserts 
that injustice attaches to not investigating ; and this injustice 
is often real whether creditors are injured or not. 

During the seventeenth century, when religious persecu- 
tion was very active, some beautiful examples of integrity 
were offered by its victims. It was common for officers to 
seize the property of conscientious and good men, and some- 
times to plunder them with such relentless barbarity as scarcely 
to leave them the common utensils of a kitchen. These per 
sons sometimes had the property of others on their premises , 
and when they heard that the officers were likely to make a 
seizure, industriously removed from their premises all pro- 
perty but their own. At one period, a number of traders in 

* Official Documents of the Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends: 
1826. 



140 



PROPERTY. 



[essay IT. 



the country who had made purchases in the London markets, 
found that their plunderers were likely to disable them from 
paying for their purchases, and they requested the merchants 
to take back, and the merchants did take back, their goods. 

In passing, I would remark, that the readers of mere gen- 
eral history only, are very imperfectly acquainted with the ex- 
tent to which persecution on account of religion has been 
practised in these kingdoms, ages since protestantism became 
the religion of the state. A competent acquaintance with 
this species of history, is of incomparable greater value than 
much of the matter with which historians are wont to fill their 
pages. 

' Improvements on Estates. — There are some circum- 
stances in which the occupier of lands or houses, who has 
increased their value by erections or other improvements, 
cannot in justice be compelled to pay for the increased value 
if he purchases the property. A man purchases the lease of 
an estate, and has reason to expect from the youth and health 
of the " lives," that he may retain possession of it for thirty 
or forty years. In consequence of this expectation, he makes 
many additions to the buildings ; and by other modes of im- 
provement considerably increases the value of the estate. It 
however happens that in the course of two or three years all 
the lives drop. The landowner when the person applies to 
him for a new lease, demands payment for all the improve- 
ments. This I say is not just. It will be replied, that all 
parties knew and voluntarily undertook the risk : so they did, 
and if the event had approached to the ordinary average of 
such risks, the owner would act rightly in demanding the 
increased value. But it does not; and this is the circum- 
stance which would make an upright man decline to avail 
himself of his advantages. Yet, if any one critically disputes 
the "justice" of the demand, I give up the word, and say that 
it is not considerate, and kind, and benevolent ; in a word, it 
is not Christian. It is no light calamity upon such a tenant 
to be obliged so unexpectedly to repurchase a lease ; and to 
add to this calamity a demand which the common feelings of 
mankind would condemn, cannot be the act of a good man. 
Who doubts whether, within the last fourteen years, it has 
not been the duty of many landowners to return a portion of 
their rents ? The duty is the same in one case as in the other ; 
and it is founded on the same principles in both. To say 
that other persons would be willing to pay the present value 
of the property, would not affect the question of morality ; 
because, to sell it to another for that value when the former 



CHAP. II.] 



PROPERTY. 



141 



tenant was desirous of repurchasing, would not diminish the 
unkindness to him. 

Settlements. — It is not an unfrequent occurrence, when 
a merchant or other person becomes insolvent, that the credit- 
ors unexpectedly find the estate is chargeable with a large 
settlement on the wife. There is a consideration connected 
with this which in a greater degree involves integrity of char- 
acter than perhaps is often supposed. Men in business 
obtain credit from others in consequence of the opinions 
which others form of their character and property. The 
latter, if it be not the greater foundation of credit, is a great 
one. A person lives then at the rate of a thousand a year; 
he maintains a respectable establishment, and diffuses over 
all its parts indications of property. These appearances are 
relied upon by other men : they think they may safely entrust 
him, and they do entrust him, with goods or money ; until, 
when his insolvency is suddenly announced, they are sur- 
prised and alarmed to find that five hundred a year is settled 
on his wife. Now this person has induced others to confide 
their property to him by holding out fallacious appearances. 
He has in reality deceived them ; and the deception is as real, 
though it may not be as palpable, as if he had deluded them 
with verbal falsehoods. He has been acting a continued un- 
truth. Perhaps such a man will say that he never denied 
that the greater part of his apparent property was settled on 
his wife. This may be true ; but, when his neighbour came 
to him to lodge five or six hundred pounds in his hands ; 
when he was conscious that this neighbour's confidence was 
founded upon the belief that his apparent property was really 
his own ; when there was reason to apprehend, that if his 
neighbour had known his actual circumstances he would have 
hesitated in entrusting him with the money, then he does 
really and practically deceive his neighbour, and it is not a 
sufficient justification to say that he has uttered no untruth. 
The reader will observe that the case is very different from 
that of a person who conducts his business with borrowed 
money. This person must annually pay the income of the 
money to the lender. He does not expend it on his own 
establishment, and consequently does not hold out the same 
fallacious appearances. Some profligate spendthrifts take a 
house, buy elegant furniture, and keep a handsome equipage, 
in order by these appearances to deceive and defraud traders. 
No man doubts whether these persons act criminally. How 
then can he be innocent who knowingly practises a deception 
similar in kind though varying in degree ? 



142 



PROPERTY. 



[ESSAY II. 



Houses of Infamy. — If it were not that a want of virtue 
is so common amongst men, we should wonder at the cool- 
ness with which some persons of decent reputation are con- 
tent to let their houses to persons of abandoned character, 
and to put periodically into their pockets, the profits of in- 
famy. Sophisms may easily be invented to palliate the con- 
duct ; but nothing can make it right. Such a landlord knows 
perfectly to what purpose his house will be devoted, and 
knows that he shall receive the wages, not perhaps of his 
own iniquity, but still the wages of iniquity. He is almost a 
partaker with them in their sins. If I were to sell a man 
arsenic or a pistol, knowing that the buyer wanted it to com- 
mit murder, should I not be a bad man ? If I let a man a 
house, knowing that the renter wants it for purposes of wick- 
edness, am I an innocent man ? Not that it is to be affirmed 
that no one may receive ill-gotten money. A grocer may 
sell a pound of sugar to a woman though he knows she is 
upon the town. But, if we cannot specify the point at which 
a lawful degree of participation terminates, we can determine, 
respecting some degrees of participation, that they are unlaw- 
ful. To the majority of such offenders against the Moral 
Law, these arguments may be urged in vain ; there are some 
of whom we may indulge greater hope. Respectable public 
brewers are in the habit of purchasing beer houses in order 
that they may supply the publicans with their porter. Some 
of these houses are notoriously the resort of the most aban- 
doned of mankind ; the daily scenes of riot, and drunkenness, 
and of the most filthy debauchery. Yet these houses are 
purchased by brewers — perhaps there is a competition amongst 
them for the premises ; they put in a tenant of their own, 
supply him with beer, and regularly receive the profits of 
this excess of wickedness. Is there no such obligation as 
that of abstaining even from the appearance of evil 1 Is there 
no such thing as guilt without a personal participation in it ? 
All pleas such as that, if one man did not supply such a house 
another would, are vain subterfuges. Upon such reasoning, 
you might rob a traveller on the road, if you knew that at the 
next turning a footpad was waiting to plunder him if you did 
not. Selling such houses to be occupied as before, would be 
like selling slaves because you thought it criminal to keep 
them in bondage. The obligation to discountenance wicked- 
ness rests upon him who possesses the power. " To him 
who knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin." 
To retain our virtue may in such cases cost us something ; 



CHAP. II.] 



PROPERTY. 



143 



but he who values virtue at its worth will not think that he 
retains it at a dear rate. 

Literary Property. — Upon similar grounds there are 
some of the profits of the press which a good man cannot ac- 
cept. There are some periodical works and some newspa- 
pers, from which, if he were offered an annual income, he 
would feel himself bound to reject it. Suppose there is a 
newspaper which is lucrative because it gratifies a vicious 
taste for slander or indecency — or suppose there is a maga- 
zine of which the profits result from the attraction of irre- 
ligious or licentious articles, I would not put into my pocket, 
every quarter of a year, the money which was gained by 
vitiating mankind. In all such cases, there is one sort of ob- 
ligation which applies with great force, the obligation not to 
discourage rectitude by our example. Upon this ground, a 
man of virtue would hesitate even to contribute an article to 
such a publication, lest they who knew he was a contributor, 
should think they had his example to justify improprieties of 
their own. 

Rewards. — A person loses his pocket-book containing 
fifty pounds, and offers ten pounds to the finder if he will 
restore it. The finder ought not to demand the reward. It 
implies surely some imputation upon a man's integrity, when 
he accepts payment for being honest. For, for what else is 
he paid ? If he retains the property he is manifestly fraudu- 
lent. To be paid for giving it up, is to be paid for not com- 
mitting fraud. The loser offers the reward in order to over- 
power the temptation to dishonesty. To accept the reward 
is therefore tacitly to acknowledge that you would have been 
dishonest if it had not been offered. This certainly is not 
maintaining an integrity that is " above suspicion." It will 
be said that the reward is offered voluntarily. This, in proper 
language, is not true. Two evils are presented to the loser, 
of which he is compelled to choose one. If men were honest, 
he would not offer the reward : he would make it known that 
he had lost his pocket-book, and the finder, if a finder there 
were, would restore it. The offered ten pounds is a tax which 
is imposed upon him by the want of uprightness in mankind, 
and he who demands the money actively promotes the impo- 
sition. The very word reward carries with it its own repro- 
bation. As a reward, the man of integrity would receive no- 
thing. If the loser requested it, he might if he needed it, 
accept a donation ; but he would let it be understood that he 
accepted a present not that he received a debt. 



144 



PROPERTY. 



[ESSAY II. 



Perhaps examples enough or more than enough, have been 
accumulated to illustrate this class of obligations. Many ap- 
peared needful, because it is a class which is deplorably neg- 
lected in practice. So strong is the temptation to think that we 
may rightfully possess whatever the law assigns to us — so in- 
sinuating is the notion, upon subjects of property, that whatever 
the law does not punish we may rightfully do, that there is 
little danger of supplying too many motives to habitual dis- 
crimination of our duties and to habitual purity of conduct. 
Let the reader especially remember, that the examples which 
are offered are not all of them selected on account of their 
individual importance, but rather as illustrations of the gen- 
eral principle. A man may meet with a hundred circumstances 
in life to which none of these examples are relevant, but I 
think he will not have much difficulty in estimating the prin- 
ciples which they illustrate. And this induces the observa- 
tion, that although several of these examples are taken from 
British law or British customs, they do not, on that account, 
lose their applicability where these laws and customs do not 
obtain. If this book should ever be read in a foreign land, or 
if it should be read in this land when public institutions or 
the tenor of men's conduct shall be changed, the principles 
of its morality will, nevertheless, be applicable to the affairs 
of life. 



CHAPTER III. 

INEQUALITY OF PROPERTY. 

Accumulation of Wealth : its proper limits — Provision for children : 
" Keeping up the family." 

That many and great evils result from that inequality of 
property which exists in civilized countries, is indicated by 
the many propositions which have been made to diminish or 
destroy it. We want not indeed such evidence ; for it is suf- 
ficiently manifest to every man who will look round upon his 
neighbours. We join not with those who declaim against all 
inequality of property : the real evil is not that it is unequal, 
but that it is greatly unequal ; not that one man is richer than 
another, but that one man is so rich as to bejuxurious, or 
imperious, or profligate, and that another is so poor as to be 



CHAP III.] 



INEQUALITY OF PROPERTY. 



145 



abject and depraved, as well as to be destitute of the proper 
comforts of life. 

There are two means by which the pernicious inequality 
of property may be- diminished ; by political institutions, and 
by the exertions of private men. Our present business is with 
the latter. 

To a person who possesses and expends more than he 
needs, there are two reasonable inducements to diminish its 
amount — first, to benefit others, and next to benefit his family 
and himself. The claims of benevolence towards others are 
often and earnestly urged upon the public, and for that reason 
they will not be repeated here. Not that there is no occasion 
to repeat the lesson, for it is very inadequately learnt ; but 
that it is of more consequence to exhibit obligations which 
are less frequently enforced. To insist upon diminishing the 
amount of a man's property for the sake of his family and him' 
self may present to some men new ideas, and to some men 
the doctrine may be paradoxical. 

Large possessions are in a great majority of instances in- 
jurious to the possessor — that is to say, those who hold them 
are generally less excellent, both as citizens and as men, than 
those who do not. The truth appears to be established by 
the concurrent judgment of mankind. Lord Bacon says — ■ 
" Certainly great riches have sold more men than they have 
bought out. As baggage is to an army, so are riches to vir- 
tue. — It hindereth the march, yea and the care of it some- 
times loseth or disturbeth the victory." — " It is to be feared 
that the general tendency of rank, and especially of riches, is 
to withdraw the heart from spiritual exercises."* " A much 
looser system of morals commonly prevails in the higher than 
in the middling and lower orders of society."! " The middle 
rank contains most virtue and abilities. w | 

" Wealth heap'd on wealth, nor truth nor safety buys, 
The dangers gather as the treasures rise."§ 

" There is no greater calamity than that of leaving children 
an affluent independence. — The worst examples in the Society 
of Friends are generally amongst the children of the rich."|| 

It was an observation of Voltaire's that the English people 
were, like their butts of beer, froth at top, dregs at bottom — ■ 
in the middle excellent. The most rational, the wisest, the 
best portion of mankind, belong to that class who " possess 

* More's Moral Sketches, 3rd Edit. p. 446. t Wilberforce : Pract. View, 
t Wollestoncroft : Rights of Women, c. 4. 

§ Johnson : Vanity of Human Wishes. || Clarkson : Portraiture. 
13 



146 



INEQUALITY OF PROPERTY. 



[ESSAY II. 



neither poverty nor riches." Let the reader look around him. 
Let him observe who are the persons that contribute most to 
the moral and physical amelioration of mankind ; who they 
are that practically and personally support our unnumbered 
institutions of benevolence ; who they are that exhibit the 
worthiest examples of intellectual exertion ; who they are to 
whom he would himself apply if he needed to avail himself 
of a manly and discriminating judgment. That they are the 
poor is not to be expected : we appeal to himself whether 
they are the rich. Who then would make his son a rich 
man ? Who would remove his child out of that station in 
society which is thus peculiarly favourable to intellectual and 
moral excellence ? 

If a man knows that wealth will in all probability be inju- 
rious to himself and to his children, injurious too in the most 
important points, the religious and moral character, it is mani- 
festly a point of the soundest wisdom and the truest kindness 
to decline to accumulate it. Upon this subject, it is admira- 
ble to observe with what exactness the precepts of Christian- 
ity are adapted to that conduct which the experience of life 
recommends. " The care of this world and the deceitfulness 
of riches choke the word :" — " choked with cares, and riches, 
and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection :" — 
" How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the king- 
dom of God !" " They that will be rich fall into temptation 
and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which 
drown men in destruction and perdition." Not that riches 
necessarily lead to these consequences, but that such is their 
tendency ; a tendency so uniform and powerful that it is to be 
feared these are their, very frequent results. Now this lan- 
guage of the Christian Scriptures does not contain merely 
statements of fact — it imposes duties ; and whatever may be 
the precise mode of regarding these duties, one point is per- 
fectly clear ; — that he who sets no other limit to his posses- 
sions or accumulations than inability or indisposition to obtain 
more, does not conform to the will of God. Assuredly, if 
any specified thing is declared by Christianity to be highly 
likely to obstruct our advancement in goodness, and to en- 
danger our final felicity, against that thing, whatever it be, it 
is imperative upon us to guard with wakeful solicitude. 

And therefore, without affirming that no circumstance can 
justify a great accumulation of property, it may safely be con- 
cluded that far the greater number of those who do accumu- 
late it, do wrong : nor do I see any reason to be deterred 
from ranking the distribution of a portion of great wealth, or a 



CHAP. III.] 



INEQUALITY OF PROPERTY. 



147 



refusal to accumulate it, amongst the imperative duties which 
are imposed by the Moral Law. In truth, a man may almost 
discover whether such conduct is obligatory, by referring to 
the motives which induce him to acquire great property or to 
retain it. The motives are generally impure ; the desire of 
splendour, or the ambition of eminence, or the love of per- 
sonal indulgence. Are these motives fit to be brought into 
competition with the probable welfare, the virtue, the useful- 
ness, and the happiness of his family and himself? Yet such 
is the competition, and to such unworthy objects, duty, and 
reason, and affection are sacrificed. 

It will be said, a man should provide for his family ; and 
make them, if he can, independent. That he should provide 
for his family is true ; that he should make them independent, 
at any rate that he should give them an affluent independence, 
forms no part of his duty, and is frequently a violation of it. 
As it respects almost all men, he will best approve himself a 
wise and kind parent, who leaves to his sons so much only 
as may enable them, by moderate engagements, to enjoy the 
conveniences and comforts of life ; and to his daughters a 
sufficiency to possess similar comforts, but not a sufficiency 
to shine amongst the great, or to mingle with the votaries of 
expensive dissipation. If any father prefers other objects to 
the welfare and happiness of his children — if wisdom and 
kindness towards them are with him subordinate considera- 
tions, it is not probable that he will listen to reasonings like 
these. But where is the parent who dares to acknowledge 
this preference to his own mind ? 

It were idle to affect to specify any amount of property 
which a person ought not to exceed. The circumstances of 
one man may make it reasonable that he should acquire or 
retain much more than another who has fewer claims. Yet 
somewhat of a general rule may be suggested. He who is 
accumulating should consider why he desires more. If it 
really is, that he believes an addition will increase the welfare 
and usefulness and virtue of his family, it is probable that 
further accumulation may be right. If no such belief is sin- 
cerely entertained, it is more than probable that it is wrong. 
He who already possesses affluence should consider its actual 
existing effects. — If he employs a competent portion of it in 
increasing the happiness of others, if it does not produce any 
injurious effect upon his own mind, if it does not diminish or 
impair the virtues of his children, if they are grateful for their 
privileges rather than vain of their superiority, if they second 
his own endeavours to diffuse happiness around them, he may 



148 



INEQUALITY OF PROPERTY. [ESSAY II. 



remain as lie is. If such effects are not produced, but in- 
stead of them others of an opposite tendency, he certainly 
has too much. — Upon this serious subject let the Christian 
parent be serious. If, as is proved by the experience of 
every day, great property usually inflicts great injuries upon 
those who possess it, what motive can induce a good man to 
lay it up for his children ? What motive will be his justifi- 
cation, if it tempts them from virtue ? 

When children are similarly situated with respect to their 
probable wants, there seems no reason for preferring the el- 
der to the younger, or sons to daughters. Since the proper 
object of a parent in making a division of his property, is the 
comfort and welfare of his children — if this object is likely 
to be better secured by an equal than by any other division, 
an equal division ought to be made. It is a common, though 
not a very reasonable opinion, that a son needs a larger por- 
tion than a daughter. To be sure, if he is to live in greater 
affluence than she, he does. But why should he ? There 
appears no motive in reason, and certainly there is none in 
affection, for diminishing one child's comforts to increase 
another's. A son too has greater opportunities of gain. A 
woman almost never grows rich except by legacies or mar- 
riage ; so that, if her father do not provide for her, it is prob- 
able that she will not be provided for at all. As to marriage, 
:he opportunity is frequently not offered to a woman ; and a 
father if he can, should so provide for his daughter as to 
snable her, in single life, to live in a state of comfort not 
greatly inferior to her brother's. The remark that the custom 
of preferring sons is general, and therefore that when a couple 
marry the inequality is adjusted, applies only to the case of 
:hose who do marry. The number of women who do not is 
great ; and a parent cannot foresee his daughter's lot. Be- 
sides, since marriage is (and is reasonably) a great object to 
a woman, and is desirable both for women and for men, there 
appears a propriety in increasing the probability of marriage 
by giving to women such property as shall constitute an ad- 
ditional inducement to marriage in the men. I shall hardly 
be suspected of recommending persons to "marry for money." 
My meaning is this : A young man possesses five hundred 
a-year, and lives on a corresponding scale. He is attached to 
a woman who has but one hundred a-year. This young man 
sees that if he marries, he must reduce his scale of living ; 
and the consideration operates (I do not say that it ought to 
operate) to deter him from marriage. But if the young man 
possessed three hundred a-year and lived accordingly, and if 



CHAP. III.] INEQUALITY OF PROPERTY. 



149 



the object of his attachment possessed three hundred a-year 
also, he would not be prevented from marrying her by the 
fear of being obliged to diminish his system of expenditure. 
Just complaints are made of those half-concealed blandish- 
ments by which some women who need " a settlement" en- 
deavour to procure it by marriage. Those blandishments 
would become more tempered with propriety, if one great mo- 
tive was taken away by the possession of a competence of their 
own. 

An equal division of a father's property will be said to be 
incompatible with the system of primogeniture, and almost in- 
compatible with hereditary rank. These are not subjects for 
the present Essay. Whatever the reader may think of the 
practical value of these institutions, it is manifest that far the 
greater number of those who have property to bequeath, need 
not concern themselves with either : they may, in their own 
practice, contribute to diminish the general and the particular 
evils of unequal property, With respect to their own fami- 
lies, the result can hardly fail to be good. It is probable that 
as men advance in intellectual, and especially in moral excel- 
lence, the desire of " keeping up the family" will become less 
and less an object of solicitude. That desire is not, in its or- 
dinary character, recommended by any considerations which 
are obviously reducible from virtue or from reason. It is an 
affair of vanity ; and vanity, like other weaknesses and evils 
may be expected to diminish as sound habits of judgment 
prevail in the world. 

Perhaps it is remarkable, that the obligation not to accumu- 
late great property for ourselves or our children, is so little 
enforced by the writers on morality. None will dispute that 
such accumulation is both unwise and unkind. Every one 
acknowledges too that the general evils of the existing in- 
equality of property are enormously great ; yet how few in- 
sist upon those means by which, more than by any other pri- 
vate means, these evils may be diminished ! If all men de- 
clined to retain, or refrained from acquiring, more than is 
likely to be beneficial to their families and themselves, the 
pernicious inequality of property would quickly be diminished 
or destroyed. There is a motive upon the individual to do 
this, which some public reformations do not offer. He who 
contributes almost nothing to diminish the general mischiefs 
of extreme poverty and extreme wealth, may yet do so much 
benefit to his own connexions as shall greatly overpay him 
for the sacrifice of vanity or inclination. Perhaps it may be 
said that there is a claim too of justice. The wealth of a 

13* 



150 



LITIGATION ARBITRATION. 



[ESSAY II. 



nation is a sort of common stock, of which the accumulations 
of one man are usually made at the expense of others. A 
man who has acquired a reasonable sufficiency, and who 
nevertheless retains his business to acquire more than a suffi- 
ciency, practises a sort of injustice towards another who 
needs his means of gain. There are always many who can- 
not enjoy the comforts of life, because others are improperly 
occupying the means by which those comforts are to be ob- 
tained. Is it the part of a Christian to do this ? — even aba- 
ting the consideration that he is injuring himself by withhold- 
ing comforts from another. 



CHAPTER IV. 

LITIGATION— ARBITRATION. 

Practice of early Christians — Evils of Litigation — Efficiency of 
Arbitration. 

In the third Essay,* some enquiry will be attempted, as to 
whether Justice may not often be administered between con- 
tending parties, or to public offenders, by some species of ar- 
bitration rather than by law : — whether a gradual substitution 
of Equity for fixed rules of decision, is not congruous alike 
with philosophy and morals. — The present chapter, however, 
and that which succeeds it, proceed upon the supposition that 
the administration of Justice continues in its present state. 

The question for an individual, when he has some cause 
of dispute with another respecting property or rights is, By 
what means ought I to endeavour to adjust it ? Three modes 
of adjustment may be supposed to be offered : Private ar- 
rangement with the other party — Reference to impartial men 
— and Law. Private adjustment is the best mode ; arbitra- 
tion is good ; law is good only when it is the sole alterna- 
tive. 

The litigiousness of some of the early Christians at Cor- 
inth gave occasion to the energetic expostulation, " Dare any 
of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the 
unjust and not before the saints ? Do ye not know that the 
saints shall judge the world? And if the world shall be 

* Chap. X. 



CHAP. IV.] LITIGATION ARBITRATION. 



151 



judged by you, are ye. unworthy to judge the smallest matters ? 
Know ye not that we shall judge angels ? How much more 
things that pertain to this life 1 If then, ye have judgments 
of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are 
least esteemed in the church. I speak to your shame. Is it 
so that there is not a wise man among you ? No, not one 
that shall be able to judge between his brethren 1 But brother 
goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers. 
Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye 
go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take 
wrong ? Why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be de- 
frauded ?"* Upon this, one observation is especially to be re- 
membered : that a great part of its pointedness of reprehen- 
sion is directed, not so much to litigation, as to litigation he- 
fore Pagans. " Brother goeth to law with brother, and that 
before the unbelievers." The impropriety of exposing the 
disagreements of Christians in Pagan courts, was manifest 
and great. They who had rejected the dominant religion, for 
a religion of which one peculiar characteristic was good will 
and unanimity, were especially called upon to exhibit in their 
conduct an illustration of its purer principles. Few things, 
not grossly vicious, would bring upon Christians and upon 
Christianity itself so much reproach as a litigiousness which 
could not or would not find arbitration amongst themselves. 
The advice of the apostle appears to have been acted upon : 
" The primitive church, which was always zealous to recon- 
cile the brethren and to procure pardon for the offender from 
the person offended, did ordain, according to the epistle of 
St. Paul to the Corinthians, that the saints or Christians 
should not maintain a process of law one against the other at 
the bar or tribunals of infidels. "f The Christian of the pre- 
sent day is differently circumstanced, because, though he ap- 
peals to the law, he does not appeal to Pagan judges ; and 
therefore so much of the apostle's censure as was occasioned 
by the Paganism of the courts, does not apply to us. 

To this indeed there is an objection founded upon analogy. 
If at the commencement of the Reformation, two of the re- 
formers had carried a dispute respecting property before Ro- 
mish courts, they would have come under some portion of that 
reprobation which was addressed to the Corinthians. Cer- 
tainly, when persons profess such a love for religious purity 
and excellence that they publicly withdraw from the general 
religion of a people, there ought to be so much purity and ex- 

* 1 Cor. vi. t Ryeaut's Lives of the Popes, fol. 2d, ed. 1688, In- 

trod. p. 2. 



152 



LITIGATION ARBITRATION. 



[ESSAY II. 



cellence amongst them, that it would be needless to have re- 
course to those from whom they had separated, to adjust their 
disputes. The catholic of those days might reasonably 
have turned upon such reformers and said, " Is it so that 
there is not a wise man among you, no not one that shall be 
able to judge between his brethren ?'.' And if indeed, no such 
wise man was to be found, it might safely be concluded that 
their reformation was an empty name. — For the same reasons, 
those who, in the present times, think it right to withdraw 
from other protestant churches in order to maintain sounder 
doctrines or purer practice, cast reproach upon their own com- 
munity if they cannot settle their disputes amongst them- 
selves. Pretensions to soundness and purity are of little 
avail if they do not enable those who make them to repose in 
one another such confidence as this. Were I a Wesley an or 
a Baptist, I should think it discreditable to go to law with one 
of my own brotherhood. 

But, though the apostle's prohibition of going to law ap- 
pears to have been founded upon the paganism of the courts, 
his language evidently conveys disapprobation, generally, of 
appeals to the law. He insists upon the propriety of adjust- 
ing disputes by arbitration. Christians, he says, ought not to 
be unworthy to judge the smallest matters ; and so emphati- 
cally does he insist upon the truth, that their religion ought to 
capacitate them to act as arbitrators, that he intimates that 
even a small advance in Christian excellence is sufficient for 
such a purpose as this : — " Set them to judge who are least 
esteemed in the church." It will perhaps be acknowledged 
that when Christianity shall possess its proper influence over 
us, there will be little reason to recur, for adjustment of our 
disagreements, to fixed rules of law. And though this influ- 
ence is so far short of universal prevalence, who cannot find 
amongst those to whom he may have access, some who are 
capable of deciding rightly and justly ? The state of that 
christian country must indeed be bad, if it contains not, even 
in every little district, one that is able to judge between his 
brethren. 

Nevertheless, there are cases in which the christian may 
properly appeal to the law. He may have an antagonist who 
can in no other manner be induced to be just, or to act aright. 
Under some such circumstances Paul himself pursued a simi- 
lar course : " I appeal unto Caesar." — " Is it lawful for you 
to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uneondemned ?" And 
when he had been illegally taken into custody he availed him- 
self of his legal privileges, and made the magistrates " come 



CHAP. IV.] LITIGATION ARBITRATION. 



153 



themselves and fetch him out." There are, besides, in the 
present condition of jurisprudence, some cases in which the 
rule of justice depends upon the rule of law — so that a thing 
is just or not just according as the law determines. In such 
cases, neither party, however well disposed, may be able dis- 
tinctly to tell what justice requires until the law informs 
them. Even then, however, there are better means of pro- 
cedure than by prosecuting suits. The parties may obtain 
" Opinions." 

Besides these considerations there are others which power- 
fully recommend arbitration in preference to law. The evils 
of litigation, from which arbitration is in a great degree exempt, 
are great. 

Expense is an important item. A reasonable man desires 
of course to obtain justice as inexpensively as he can ; and 
the great cost of obtaining it in courts of law, is a powerful 
reason for preferring arbitration. 

Legal Injustice. — He who desires that justice should be 
dispensed between him and another, should sufficiently bear 
in mind how much injustice is inflicted by the law. We have 
seen in some of the preceding chapters that law is often very 
wide of equity ; and he who desires to secure himself from 
an inequitable decision, possesses a powerful motive to prefer 
arbitration. The technicalities of the law and the artifices of 
lawyers are almost innumerable. Sometimes, when a party 
thinks he is on the eve of obtaining a just verdict, he is sud- 
denly disappointed and his cause is lost by some technical 
defect — the omission of a word or the mis-spelling of a name ; 
matters which in no degree affect the validity of his claims. 
If the only advantage which arbitration offers to disagreeing 
parties, was exemption from these deplorable evils, it would 
be a substantial and sufficient argument in its favour. There 
is no reason to doubt, that justice would generally be adminis- 
tered by a reference to two or three upright and disinterested 
men. When facts are laid before such persons, they are sel- 
dom at a loss to decide what justice requires. Its principles 
are not so critical or remote as usually to require much labour 
of research to discover what they dictate. It might be con- 
cluded, therefore, even if experience did not confirm it, that 
an arbitration, if it did not decide absolutely aright, would at 
least come to as just a decision as can be attained by human 
means. But experience does confirm the conclusion. It is 
known that the Society of Friends never permits its members 
to carry disagreements with one another before courts of law. 
All, if they continue in the society, must submit to arbitration. 



154 



, THE MORALITY OF LEGAL PRACTICE. [ESSAY II. 



And what is the consequence 1 They find, practically, that 
arbitration is the best mode ; that justice is in fact adminis- 
tered by it, administered more satisfactorily and with fewer 
exceptions than in legal courts. No one pretends to dispute 
this. Indeed if it were disputable, it may be presumed that 
this community would abandon the practice. They adhere to 
it because it is the most Christian practice and the best. 

Inquietude. — The expense, the injustice, the delays and 
vexations which are attendant upon lawsuits, bring altogether 
a degree of inquietude upon the mind which greatly deducts 
from the enjoyment of life, and from the capacity to attend 
with composure to other and perhaps more important concerns. 
If to this we add the heart-burnings and ill-will which suits 
frequently occasion, a considerable sum of evil is in this re- 
spect presented to us : a sum of evil, be it remembered, from 
which arbitration is in a great degree exempt. 

Upon the whole, arbitration is recommended by such va- 
rious and powerful arguments, that when it is proposed by one 
of two contending parties and objected to by the other, there 
is reason to presume that, with that other, justice is not the 
paramount object of desire. 



CHAPTER Y. 

THE MORALITY OF LEGAL PRACTICE. 

Complexity of law — Professional untruths — Defences of legal practice — 
Effects of legal practice : Seduction : Theft : Peculation — Pleading — 
The duties of the profession — Effects of legal practice on the profes- 
sion, and on the public. 

If it should be asked why, in a book of general morality, 
the writer selects for observation the practice of a particular 
profession, the answer is simply this, that the practice of this 
particular profession peculiarly needs it. It peculiarly needs 
to be brought into juxtaposition with sound principles of mo- 
rality. Besides this, an honest comparison of the practice 
with the principles will afford useful illustration of the requisi- 
tions of virtue. 

That public opinion pronounces that there is, in the ordi- 
nary character of legal practice, much that is not reconcilable 



CHAP. V.] THE MORALITY OF LEGAL PRACTICE. 



155 



with rectitude, can need no proof. The public opinion could 
scarcely become general unless it were founded upon truth, 
and that it is general is evinced by the language of all ranks 
of men ; from that of him who writes a treatise of morality, to 
that of him who familiarly uses a censorious proverb. It may 
reasonably be concluded that when the professional conduct 
of a particular set of men is characterized peculiarly with 
sacrifices of rectitude, there must be some general and pecu- 
liar cause. There appears nothing in the profession, as such, 
to produce this effect — nothing in taking a part in the adminis- 
tration of justice which necessarily leads men away from the 
regard to justice. How then are we to account for the fact 
as it exists, or where shall we primarily lay the censure ? Is 
it the fault of the men, or of the institutions ; of the lawyers 
or of the law ? Doubtless the original fault is in the law. 

This fault, as it respects our own country, and I suppose 
every other, is of two kinds ; one is necessary, and one acci- 
dental. First : Whenever fixed rules of deciding controver- 
sies between man and man, or fixed rules of administering 
punishment to public offenders are established — there it is in- 
evitable that equity will sometimes be sacrificed to rules. 
These rules are laws, that is, they must be uniformly, and for 
the most part literally applied ; and this literal application (as 
we have already had manifold occasion to show,) is sometimes 
productive of practical injustice. Since, then, the legal pro- 
fession employ themselves in enforcing this literal application 
— since they habitually exert themselves to do this with little 
regard to the equity of the result, they cannot fail to deserve 
and to obtain the character of a profession that sacrifices rec- 
titude. I know not that this is evitable so long as numerous 
and fixed rules are adopted in the administration of justice. 

The second cause of the evil, as it results from the law it- 
self, is in its extreme complication — in the needless multipli- 
city of its forms, in the inextricable intricacy of its whole 
structure. This, which is probably by far the most efficient 
cause of the want of morality in legal practice, I call gratui- 
tous. It is not necessary to law that it should be so extremely 
complicated. This, the public are beginning more and more 
to see and to assert. Simplification has indeed been in some 
small degree effected by recent acts of the legislature ; and this 
is a sufficient evidence that it was needed. But whether needed, 
or not, the temptation which it casts in the way of profes- 
sional virtue is excessively great. A man takes a cause — a 
morally bad cause we will suppose — to a barrister. The bar- 
rister searches his memory or his books for some one or more 



156 THE MORALITY OF LEGAL PRACTICE. [ESSAY II 

amongst the multiplicity of legal technicalities by which suc- 
cess may be obtained for his client. He finds them, urges 
them in court, shows that the opposing client cannot legally 
substantiate his claim, and thus inflicts upon him practical in- 
justice. This is primarily the fault of the law. Take away 
or diminish this encumbering load of technicalities, and you 
take away, in the same proportion, the opportunity for the 
profession to sacrifice equity to forms, and by consequence 
diminish the immorality of its practice. There can be no 
efficient reform amongst lawyers without a reform of the law. 

But whilst thus the original cause of the sacrifice of virtue 
amongst legal men is to be sought in legal institutions, it can- 
not be doubted that they are themselves chargeable with 
greatly adding to the evils which these institutions occasion. 
This is just what, in the present state of human virtue, we 
might expect. Lawyers familiarize to their minds the notion, 
that whatever is legally right is right ; and when they have 
once habituated themselves to sacrifice the manifest dictates 
of equity to law, where shall they stop 1 If a material inform- 
ality in an instrument is to them a sufficient justification of 
a sacrifice of these dictates, they will soon sacrifice them be- 
cause a word has been mis-spelt by an attorney's clerk. 
When they have gone thus far, they Avill go further. The 
practice of disregarding rectitude in courts of justice will be- 
come habitual. They will go onward, from insisting upon 
legal technicalities to an endeavour to pervert the law, then 
to the giving a false colouring to facts, and then onward and 
still onward until witnesses are abashed and confounded, until 
juries are misled by impassioned appeals to their feelings, un- 
til deliberate untruths are solemnly averred, until, in a word, 
all the pitiable and degrading spectacles are exhibited which 
are now exhibited in legal practice. 

But when we say that the original cause of this unhappy 
system is to be found in the law itself, is it tantamount to a 
justification of the system 1 No : if it were, it would be suffi- 
cient to justify any departure from rectitude — it would be 
sufficient to justify any crime, to be able to show that the per- 
petrator possessed strong temptation. Strong temptation is 
undoubtedly placed before the legal practitioner. This should 
abate our censure, but it shoidd not cause us to be silent. 
• We affirm that a lawyer cannot morally enforce the appli- 
cation of legal rules, without regard to the claims of equity in 
the particular case. 

If it has been seen, in the preceding chapters, that morality 
is paramount to law ; if it has been seen that there are many 



CHAP. V.] THE MORALITY OF LEGAL PRACTICE. 



157 



instances in which private persons are morally obliged to 
forego their legal pretensions, then it is equally clear that a 
lawyer is obliged to hold morality as paramount to law in his 
own practice. If one man may not urge an unjust legal pre- 
tension, another may not assist him in urging it. No man it 
may be hoped will say it is the lawyer's only business to apply 
the law. Men cannot so cheaply exempt themselves from 
the obligations of morality. Yet here the question is really 
suspended ; for if the business of the profession does not jus- 
tify a disregard of morality, it is not capable of justification. 
Suspended ! It is lamentable that such a question can exist. 
For to what does the alternative lead us ? Is a man, when he un- 
dertakes a client's business, at liberty to advance his interest by 
every method, good or bad ; which the law will not punish ? If 
he is, there is an end of morality. If he is not, something must 
limit and restrict him ; and that something is the Moral Law. 

Of every custom, however indefensible, some advocates 
offer themselves ; and some accordingly have attempted to 
justify the practice of the bar.* Of that particular item in 
the practice, which consists in uttering untruths in order to 
serve a client, Dr. Paley has been the defender. " There are 
falsehoods," says he, " which are not criminal ; as where no 
one is deceived, which is the case with an advocate in asserting 
the justice, or his belief of the justice, of his client's cause." 
It is plain that in support of this position one argument, and 
only one can be urged, and that one has been selected. " No 
confidence is destroyed, because none was reposed ; no prom- 
ise to speak the truth is violated, because none was given 
or understood to be given. "t The defence is not very credit- 
able even if it were valid : it defends men from the imputation 
of falsehood because their falsehoods are so habitual that no 
one gives them credit! 

But the defence is not valid. Of this the reader may satisfy 
himself by considering why, if no one ever believes what ad- 
vocates say, they continue to speak. They would not, year 
after year, persist in uttering untruths in our courts, without 
attaining an object, and knowing that they would not attain it. 
If no one ever in fact believed them, they would cease to assev- 
erate. They do not love falsehood for its own sake, and 
utter it gratuitously and for nothing. The custom itself, there- 
fore, disproves the argument that is brought to defend it. 

* I speak of the bar, because that branch of the profession offers the 
most convenient illustration of the subject. The reasonings will gener- 
ally apply to other branches. 

t Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 3. p. I c. 15. 

14 



158 



THE MORALITY OF LEGAL PRACTICE. [ESSAY II. 



Whenever that defence becomes valid — whenever it is really- 
true that " no confidence is reposed" in advocates, they. will 
cease to use falsehood, for it will have lost its motive. But 
the real practice is to mingle falsehood and truth together, 
and so to involve the one with the other that the jury cannot 
easily separate them. The jury know that some of the 
pleader's statements are true, and these they believe. Now 
he makes other statements with the same deliberate empha- 
sis ; and how shall the jury know whether these are false or 
true 1 How shall they discover the point at which they shall 
begin to " repose no confidence ?" Knowing that a part is 
true, they cannot always know that another part is not true. 
That it is the pleader's design to persuade them of the truth 
of all he affirms, is manifest. Suppose an advocate when ho 
rose should say, " Gentlemen, I am now going to speak the 
truth ;" and after narrating the facts of the case should say, 
" Gentlemen, I am now going to address you with fictions. n 
Why would not an advocate do this ? Because then no con- 
fidence would be reposed, which is the same thing as to say 
that he pursues his present plan because some confidence is 
reposed ; and this decides the question. The decision should 
not be concealed — that the advocate who employs untruths 
in his pleadings, does really and most strictly, lie. 

And even if no one ever did believe an advocate, his false 
declarations would still be lies, because he always professes 
to speak the truth. This indeed is true upon the Archdea- 
con's own showing ; for he says, " Whoever seriously ad- 
dresses his discourse to another, tacitly promises to speak the 
truth." The case is very different from others which he pro- 
poses as parallel — " parables, fables, jests." In these, the 
speaker does not profess to state facts. But the pleader does' 
profess to state facts. He intends and endeavours to mislead. 
His untruths therefore are lies to him whether they are be- 
lieved or not ; just as, in vulgar life, a man whose falsehoods 
are so notorious that no one gives him credit, is not the less 
a liar than if he were believed. 

From one sort of legal falsehoods results one peculiar mis- 
chief, a mischief arising primarily out of an unhappy rule of 
law, but which is not on that account morally justifiable. 
" Decision is commanded by pleadings as by evidence, and 
that also to a vast extent and with a degree of certainty refu- 
sed to evidence. Decision is produced by pleadings as if 
they were true, when they are known and acknowledged to 
be false ; because they act as evidence and as true evidence 
in all cases where the opposed party cannot follow them by 



I 



CHAP. V.] THE MORALITY OF LEGAL PRACTICE. 



159 



counter declarations — a consequence which may and does 
result from poverty and other causes."* This is deplorable 
indeed. To employ false pleadings is sufficiently unjustifi- 
able ; but to employ them in order that a poor man or that 
any man may be debarred of his rights, is abominable. But 
why do we say that this peculiarly is abominable ? For to 
what purpose is an)^ falsehood urged at the bar but to impede 
or prevent the administration of justice between man and 
man ? I make no pretensions to legal knowledge. Some false 
pleadings are legally " necessary" in order to give formality 
to a proceeding. In these cases the evil is attributable in a 
great degree to the law itself, though I presume the law is 
founded upon custom, which custom was introduced by law- 
yers. The evil therefore and the guilt lies at the door of 
the system of legal practice, although it may not all lie at the 
doors of existing practitioners. f 

Gisborne is another defender of legal practice, and assumes 
a "wider ground of justification. " The standard," says he, 
" to which the advocate refers the cause of his client, is not 
the law of reason nor the law of God, but the law of the land. 
His peculiar and proper object is not to prove the side of the 
question which he maintains morally right, but legally right. 
The law offers its protection only on certain preliminary 
conditions ; it refuses to take cognizance of injuries or to en- 
force redress, unless the one be proved in the specific manner 
and the other claimed in the precise form, which it prescribes ; 
and consequently, whatever be the pleader's opinion of his 
cause, he is guilty of no breach of truth and justice in defeat- 
ing the pretensions of the persons whom he opposes, by evin- 
cing that they have not made good the terms on which alone 
they could be legally entitled, on which alone they could 
suppose themselves entitled, to success. "| There is some- 
thing specious in this reasoning, but what is its amount 1 — 
that if the laws of a country proceed upon such and such 
maxims, they exempt us from the authority of the laws of 

* West Rev. No. 9. 

t Some of these legal falsehoods are ridiculous to the last degree. A 
horse is sent to a farrier to be shod. Unhappily, and to the great regret 
of the farrier, his man accidentally lames the horse. What then says the 
legal form? That the farrier faithfully promised to shoe the horse pro- 
perly : but that " he, not regarding his said promise and undertaking, but 
contriving and fraudulently intending, craftily, and subtilely to deceive 
and defraud the said plaintiff, did not nor would shoe the said horse, in a 
skilful, careful, and proper manner, &c. !" — See the form, 2 Chitty on 
Pleading, p. 154. 

X Duties of Men. The Legal Profession 



160 



THE MORALITY OF LEGAL PRACTICE. [ESSAY II. 



God. We arrive at this often refuted doctrine at last. Either 
the acts of a legislature may suspend the obligations of mo- 
rality or they may not. If they may, there is an end of that 
morality which is founded upon the divine will : if they may 
not, the argument of Gisborne is a fallacy. But in truth he 
himself shows its fallaciousness : he says, " If a cause should 
present itself of an aspect so dark as to leave the advocate no 
reasonable doubt of its being founded in iniquity or baseness, 
or to justify extremely strong suspicions of its evil nature and 
tendency, he is bound in the sight of God to refuse all con- 
nexion with the business." Why is he thus bound to refuse? 
Because he will otherwise violate the Moral Law : and this is 
the very reason why he is bound in other cases. Observe 
too the inconsistency : first we are told that whatever be the 
pleader's opinion of a cause, " he is guilty of no breach of 
truth and justice" in advocating it ; and afterwards, that if the 
cause is of an " evil nature and tendency" he may not advo- 
cate it ! That such reasoning does not prove what it is de- 
signed to prove is evident ; but it proves something else — 
that the practice cannot be defended. Such reasoning would 
not be advanced if better could be found. Let us not, how- 
ever seem to avail ourselves of a writer's words without re- 
ference to his meaning. The meaning in the present instance 
is clearly this — that a pleader, generally, may undertake a 
vicious cause ; but that if it be very vicious, he must refrain. 
You may abet an act of a certain shade of iniquity, but not if 
it be of a certain shade deeper : you may violate the Moral 
Law to a certain extent, but not to every extent. To him 
who would recommend rectitude in its purity, few reasonings 
are more satisfactory than such as these. They prove the 
truth which they assail by evincing that it cannot be disproved. 

Dr. Johnson tried a shorter course : " You do not know a 
cause to be good or bad till the judge determines it. An ar- 
gument that does not convince you may convince the judge 
to whom you urge it, and if it does convince him, why then 
he is right and you are wrong." This is satisfactory. It 
is always satisfactory to perceive that a powerful intellect 
can find nothing but idle sophistry to urge against the obliga- 
tions of virtue. One other argument is this : Eminent barris- 
ters, it is said, should not be too scrupulous, because clients 
might fear their causes would be rejected by virtuous plead- 
ers, and might therefore go to " needy and unprincipled chi- 
caners." Why, if their causes were good, virtuous pleaders 
would undertake them ; and if they were bad, it matters not 
how soon they were discountenanced. In a right state of 



CHAP. V.] THE MORALITY OF LEGAL PRACTICE. 



161 



things, the very circumstance that only an " unprincipled 
chicaner" would undertake a particular cause, would go far 
towards procuring a verdict against it. Besides, it is a very 
loose morality that recommends good men to do improper 
things lest they should be done by the bad. 

Seeing therefore that no tolerable defence can be adduced 
of the ordinary legal practice, let us consider for a moment 
what are its practical results. 

A civil action is brought into court, and evidence has been 
heard which satisfies every man that the plaintiff is entitled 
in justice to a verdict. It is, on the part of the defendant, a 
clear case of dishonesty. Suddenly, the pleader discovers 
that there is some verbal flaw in a document, some technical 
irregularity in the proceedings — and the plaintiff loses his 
cause. The public are disappointed in their expectations of 
justice ; the jury and the court are grieved ; and the unhappy 
sufferer retires, injured and wronged — without redress or 
hope of redress. Can this be right? Can it be sufficient to 
justify a man in this conduct, to urge that such things are 
his business — the means by which he obtains his living? 
The same excuse would justify a corsair, or a troop of Ara- 
bian banditti which plunders the caravan. Yet indefensible, 
immoral, as this conduct is, it is the every day practice of the 
profession ; and the amount of injustice which is inflicted by 
this practice is enormous. The plea that such are the rules 
of the law is not admissible. Whatever utility we may be 
disposed to allow to the uniform application of the law, it will 
not justify such conduct as this. The integrity of the law 
would not have been violated, though the pleader had not 
pointed out the mis-spelling, for example, of a word. For a 
judge to refuse to allow the law to take its course after the 
mistake has been urged, is one thing ; for a pleader to detect 
and to urge it, is another. The judge may not be able to 
regard the equity of the case without sacrificing the uniform 
operation of the law. But if the inadvertency is not pointed 
out, that uniform operation is perfect though equity be awarded. 
There is no excuse for thus inflicting injustice. It is an act 
of pure gratuitous mischief : an act not required by law, an 
act condemned by morality, an act possessing no apology but 
that the agent is tempted by the gains of his profession. 

An unhappy father seeks, in a court of justice, some re- 
dress for the misery which a seducer has inflicted upon his 
family ; a redress which, if he were successful, is deplorably 
inadequate, both as a recompense to the sufferers and as a 
punishment to the criminal. The case is established, and it 

14* 



162 



THE MORALITY OF LEGAL PRACTICE. [ESSAY II. 



is manifest that equity and the public good require exemplary 
damages. What then does the pleader do ? He stands up 
and employs every contrivance to prevent the jury from 
awarding these damages. He eloquently endeavours to per- 
suade them that the act involved little guilt ; casts undeserved 
imputations upon the immediate sufferer and upon her family ; 
jests, and banters, and sneers, about all the evidence of the 
case : imputes bad motives (without truth or with it) to the 
prosecutor ; expatiates upon the little property (whether it be 
little or much) which the seducer possesses ; by these and 
by such means he labours to prevent this injured father from 
obtaining any redress, to secure the criminal from all punish- 
ment, and to encourage in other men the crime itself. Com- 
passion, justice, morality, the public good, every thing is 
sacrificed — to what ? To that which, upon such a subject, it 
were a shame to mention. 

In the criminal courts, the same conduct is practised, and 
with the same indefensibility. Can it be necessary, or ought 
it to be necessary, to insist upon the proposition — " If it be 
right that offenders should be punished, it is not right to make 
them pass with impunity." If a police officer has seized a 
thief and carried him to prison, every one knows that it would 
be vicious in me to effect his escape. Yet this is the every 
day practice of the profession. It is their regular and con- 
stant endeavour to prevent justice from being administered 
to offenders. Is it a sufficient justification of preventing the 
execution of justice, of preventing that which every good 
citizen is desirous of promoting — to say that a man is an 
advocate by profession ? Is the circumstance of belonging to 
the legal profession a good reason for disregarding those du- 
ties which are obligatory upon every other man 1 He who 
wards off punishment from swindlers and robbers, and sends 
them amongst the public upon the work of fraud and plunder 
again, surely deserves worse of his country than many a 
hungry man who filches a loaf or a trinket from a stall. As 
to employing legal artifices or the tactics of declamation in 
order to obtain the conviction of a prisoner whom there is 
reason to believe to be innocent ; or as to endeavouring to 
inflict upon him a punishment greater than his deserts, the 
wickedness is so palpable that it is wonderful that even the 
power of custom protects it from the reprobation of the world. 

In Scotland, where the criminal process is in some re- 
spects superior to ours, the proportion of those prisoners who 
escape punishment on account of " technical niceties," is very 
great. Of the persons acquitted in our courts, at least one 



CHAP. V.] THE MORALITY OF LEGAL PRACTICE. 



163 



half escape from technical niceties, or rules of evidence which 
give advantage to the prisoner, with which, in the other part 
of the island, they are wholly unacquainted."* Is not this a 
great public evil ? And if we charge that evil originally upon 
the law, is it warrantable, is it moral, in the advocate actively 
to increase and extend it. 

The plea that it is of consequence that law should be uni- 
formly administered, does not suffice to justify the pleader in 
criminal any more than in civil courts. " A thief was caught 
coming out of a house in Highbury Terrace, with a watch he 
had stolen therein upon him. He was found guilty by the 
jury upon the clearest evidence of the theft; but his counsel 
having discovered that he was charged in the indictment with 
having stolen a watch, the property of the owner of the house, 
whereas the watch really belonged to his daughter, the pris- 
oner got clear off."t The pretext of the value of an uniform 
operation of the law will not avail here. Suppose the coun- 
sel, though he did discover the watch was the daughter's, had 
not insisted upon the inaccuracy, no evil would have ensued. 
The integrity of the law would not have been violated. The 
act of a counsel therefore in such a case is simply and only 
a defeat of public justice, an injury to the State, an encourage- 
ment to thieves ; and surely there is no reason, either in mo- 
rals or in common sense, why any particular class of men 
should be privileged thus to injure the community. 

The wife of a respectable tradesman in the town in which 
I live was left a widow with eight or ten, children. She em- 
ployed a confidential person to assist in conducting the busi- 
ness. The business was flourishing; and yet at the end of 
every year she was surprised and afflicted to find that her 
profits were unaccountably small. At length this confidential 
person was suspected of peculation. Money was marked 
and placed as usual under his care. It was soon missed and 
found upon his person ; and when the police searched his 
house, they found in his possession, methodically stowed 
away, five or six thousand pounds, the accumulated plunder 
of years ! This cruel and atrocious robber found no difficulty 
in obtaining advocates, who employed every artifice of de- 
fence, who had recourse to every technicality of law, to screen 
him from punishment and to secure for him the quiet posses- 
sion of his plunder. They found in the indictment some 
word, of which the ordinary and the legal acceptation were 
different ; and the indictment was quashed ! Happily, another 

* Remarks on the Administration of Criminal Justice in Scotland, &c. 
t West. Rev. No. 8, Art. 4. 



164 



THE MORALITY OF LEGAL PRACTICE. [ESSAY II. 



was proof against the casuistry, and the criminal was found 
guilty. 

Will it be said that pleaders are not supposed to know, till 
the verdict is pronounced, whether a prisoner is guilty or not 1 
If this were true, it would not avail as a justification ; but, in 
reality, it is only a subterfuge. In this very case, after the 
verdict had been pronounced, after the prisoner's guilt had 
been ascertained, a new trial was obtained ; not on account 
of any doubt in the evidence — that was unequivocal — but on 
account of some irregularity in passing sentence. And now 
the same conduct was repeated. Knowing that the prisoner 
was guilty, advocates still exerted their talents and eloquence 
to procure impunity for him, nay to reward him at the expense 
of public duty and of private justice. They did not succeed : 
the plunderer was transported ; but their want of success does 
not diminish the impropriety, the immorality, of their endeav- 
ours. If, by the trickery of law, this man had obtained an 
acquittal, what would have been the consequence ? Not merely 
that he would have possessed, undisturbed, his plundered 
thousands ; not merely that he might have laughed at the 
family whose money he was spending ; but that a hundred 
or a thousand other shopmen, taking confidence from his suc- 
cess and his impunity, might enter upon a similar course of 
treachery and fraud. They might think that if the hour of 
detection should arrive, nothing was wanting but a sagacious 
advocate to protect them from punishment, and to secure their 
spoil. Will any man then say, as an excuse for the legal 
practice, that it is " usual," " customary," the " business of the 
profession ?" It is preposterous.* 

It really is a dreadful consideration, that a body of men, res- 
pectable in the various relationships of life, should make, in 
consequence of the vicious maxims of a profession, these de- 
plorable sacrifices of rectitude. To a writer upon such a sub- 
ject, it is difficult to speak with that plainness which morality 
requires without seeming to speak illiberally of men. But it 
is not a question of liberality but of morals. When a barris- 

* Some obstacles in the way of this mode of defeating the ends of 
justice have been happily interposed by the admirable exertions of the 
late Secretary of State for the Home Department. Still such cases are 
applicable as illustrations of what the duties of the profession are ; and, 
unfortunately, opportunities in abundance remain for sacrificing the du- 
ties of the profession to its " business." Here, without any advertance to 
political opinion, it maybe remarked, that one such statesman as Robert 
Peel is of more value to his country than a multitude of those who take 
office and leave it without any endeavour to ameliorate the national in- 
stitutions. 



CHAP. V.] THE MORALITY OF LEGAL PRACTICE. 



165 



ter arrives at an assize town on the circuit, and tacitly pub- 
lishes that (abating a few, and only a few, cases) he is will- 
ing to take the brief of any client ; that he is ready to employ 
his abilities, his ingenuity, in proving that any given cause 
is good or that it is bad ; and when, having gone before a jury, 
he urges the side on which he happens to have been em- 
ployed, with all the earnestness of seeming integrity and 
truth, and bends all the faculties which God has given him in 
promotion of its success ; when we see all this, and remem- 
ber that it was the toss of a die whether he should have done 
exactly the contrary, I think that no expression characterizes 
the procedure but that of intellectual and moral prostitution. 
[n any other place than a court of justice, every one *would 
say that it was prostitution : a court of justice cannot make it 
less. 

Perhaps the reader has heard of the pleader who, by some 
accident, mistook the side on which he was to argue, and ear- 
nestly contended for the opponent's cause. His distressed 
client at length conveyed an intimation of his mistake, and he, 
with forensic dexterity told the jury that hitherto he had only 
been anticipating the arguments of the opposing counsel, and 
that now he would proceed to show they were fallacious. If 
the reader should imagine there is peculiar indecency in this, 
his sentiment would be founded upon habit rather than upon 
reason. There is, really, very little difference between con- 
tending for both sides of the same cause, and contending 
for either side, as the earliest retainer may decide. I lately 
read the report of a trial in which retainers from both parties 
had been sent to a counsel, and when the cause was brought 
into court it was still undecided for whom he should appear. 
The scale was turned by the judgment of another counsel, and 
the pleader instantly appeared on behalf of the client to whom 
his brother had allotted him. From the mistake which is 
mentioned at the head of this paragraph, let clients take a ben- 
eficial hint. I suggest to them, if their opponent has engaged 
the ablest counsel, to engage him also themselves. The 
arrangement might easily be managed, and would be attended 
with manifest advantages ; clients would be sure of arraying 
against each other equal abilities ; justice would be promoted 
by preventing the triumph of the more skilful pleader over the 
less ; and the minds of juries might more quietly weigh the 
conflicting arguments, when they were all proved and all re- 
futed by one man. 

Probably it will be asked, What is a legal man to do ? 
How shall he discriminate his duties, or know, in the present 



166 



THE MORALITY OF LEGAL PRACTICE. [ESSAY II. 



state of legal institutions, what extent of advocation morality 
allows 1 These are fair questions, and he who asks them is 
entitled to an answer. I confess that an answer is difficult : 
and why is it difficult ? Because the whole system is un- 
sound. He who would rectify the ordinary legal practice, is 
in the situation of a physician who can scarcely prescribe 
with effect for a particular symptom in a patient's case, un- 
less he will submit to an entirely new regimen and mode of 
life. The conscientious lawyer is surrounded with tempta- 
tions and with difficulties resulting from the general system 
of the law ; difficulties and temptations so great that it may 
almost appear to be the part of a wise man to fly rather than 
to encounter them. There is however nothing necessarily in- 
cidental to the legal profession which makes it incompatible 
with morality. He who has the firmness to maintain his al- 
legiance to virtue may doubtless maintain it. Such a man 
would consider, that law being in general the practical stand- 
ard of equity; the pleader may properly illustrate and enforce 
it. He may assiduously examine statutes and precedents, 
and honourably adduce them on behalf of his client. He may 
distinctly and luminously exhibit his client's claims. In ex- 
amining his witnesses he may educe the whole truth : in ex- 
amining the other party's, he may endeavour to detect collu- 
sion, and to elicit facts which they may attempt to conceal ; 
in a word, he may lay before the court a just and lucid view 
of the whole question. But he may not quote statutes and 
adjudged cases which he really does not think apply to the 
subject, or if they do appear to apply, he may not urge them 
as possessing greater force or applicability than he really 
thinks they possess. He may not endeavour to mislead the 
jury by appealing to their feelings, by employing ridicule, and 
especially by unfounded insinuations or misrepresentation of 
facts. He may not endeavour to make his own witnesses af- 
firm more than he thinks they know, or induce them, by artful 
questions, to give a colouring to facts different from the co- 
louring of truth. He may not endeavour to conceal or discredit 
the truth by attempting to confuse the other witnesses, or 
by entrapping them into contradictions. Such as these ap- 
pear to be the rules which rectitude imposes in ordinary cases. 
There are some cases which a professional man ought not to 
undertake at all. This is indeed acknowledged by numbers 
of the profession. The obligation to reject them is of course 
founded upon their contrariety to virtue. How then shall a 
legal man know whether he ought to undertake a cause at all, 
but by some previous consideration of its merits ? This must 



CHAP. V.] THE MORALITY OF LEGAL PRACTICE. 



167 



really be done if he would conform to the requisitions of mora- 
lity. There is not an alternative : and " absurd " or " imprac- 
ticable " as it may be pronounced to be, we do not shrink from 
explicitly maintaining the truth. Impracticable ! it is at any 
rate not impracticable to withdraw from the profession or to 
decline to enter it. A man is not compelled to be a lawyer : 
and if there are so many difficulties in the practice of profes- 
sional virtue, what is to be said 1 Are we to say, Virtue must 
be sacrificed to a profession — or, The profession must be sac- 
rificed to Virtue ? The pleader will perhaps say that he can- 
not tell what the merits of a case are until they are elicited 
in court : but this surely would not avail to justify a disregard 
of morality in any other case. To defend one's self for an 
habitual disregard of the claims of rectitude, because we can- 
not tell, when we begin a course of action, whether it will in- 
volve a sacrifice of rectitude or not, is an ill defence indeed. 
At any rate, if he connects himself with a cause of questiona- 
ble rectitude, he needs not and he ought not to advocate it, 
whilst ignorant of its merits, as if he knew that it was good. 
He ought not to advocate it further than he thinks it is good. 
But if any apologist for legal practice should say, that a plead- 
er knows nothing or almost nothing of a brief till he is in- 
structed in court by a junior counsel, or that he has too many 
briefs to be capable of any previous enquiry about them, the 
answer is at hand — Refuse them. It would only add one ex- 
ample to the many — that Virtue cannot always be maintained 
without cost. It is necessary that a man should adhere to 
virtue ; it is not necessary that he should be overwhelmed with 
briefs. 

There is one consideration under which a pleader may as- 
sist a client even with a bad cause, which is, that it is pro- 
per to ore vent the client from suffering too far. I would ac- 
knowledge, generally, the justice of the opposite party's claims, 
or, if it were a criminal case, I would acquiesce in the evi- 
dence which carried conviction to my mind ; but still, in both, 
something may remain for the pleader to do. The plaintiff 
may demand a thousand pounds when only eight hundred are 
due, and a pleader, though he could not with integrity resist 
the whole demand, could resist the excess of the demand 
above the just amount. Or if the prosecutor urges the guilt 
of a prisoner and attempts to procure the infliction of an undue 
punishment, a pleader, though he knows the prisoner's guilt, 
may rightly prevent a sentence too severe. Murray the 
grammarian had been a barrister in America : " I do not re- 
collect," says he, " that I ever encouraged a client to proceed 



168 



THE MORALITY OF LEGAL PRACTICE. [ESSAY II. 



at law when I thought his cause was unjust or indefensible* 
but in such cases, I believe it was my invariable practice to 
discourage litigation and to recommend a peaceable settlement 
of differences. In the retrospect of this mode of practice, I 
have always had great satisfaction, and I am persuaded that 
a different procedure would have been the source of many 
painful recollections." * 

One serious consideration remains — the effect of the im- 
morality of Legal Practice upon the personal character of the 
profession. " The lawyer who is frequently engaged in re- 
sisting what he strongly suspects to be just, in maintaining 
what he deems to be in strictness untenable, in advancing in- 
conclusive reasoning, and seeking after flaws in the sound re- 
plies of his antagonists, can be preserved by nothing short of 
serious and invariable solicitude, from the risk of having the 
distinction between moral right and wrong almost erased from 
his mind." f Is it indeed so 1 Tremendous is the risk. Is 
it indeed so ? Then the custom which entails this fearful 
risk must infallibly be bad. Assuredly no virtuous conduct 
tends to erase the distinctions between right and wrong from 
the mind. 



It is by no means certain, that if a lawyer were to enter 
upon life with a steady determination to act upon the princi- 
ples of strict integrity, his experience would occasion any ex- 
ception to the general rule, that the path of virtue is the path 
of interest. The client who was conscious of the goodness 
of his cause, would prefer the advocate whose known maxims 
of conduct gave weight to every cause that he undertook. 
When such a man appeared before a jury, they would attend 
to his statements and his reasonings with that confidence 
which integrity only can inspire. They would not make, as 
they now do, perpetual deductions from his averred facts ; they 
would not be upon the watch, as they now are, to protect 
themselves from illusion, and casuistry, and misrepresentation. 
Such a man, I say, would have a weight of advocacy which 
no other qualification can supply ; and upright clients, know- 
ing this, would find it their interest to employ him. The ma- 
jority of clients, it is to be hoped, are upright. Professional 
success, therefore, would probably follow. And if a few such 
pleaders, nay if one such pleader was established, the conse- 
quence might be beneficial and extensive to a degree which 
it is not easy to compute. It might scon become necessary 
for other pleaders to act upon the same principles, because 
* Memoirs of Lindley Murray, p. 43. t Gisborne. 



CHAP. VI.] 



PROMISES. LIES. 



169 



clients would not entrust their interests to any but those whose 
characters would give weight to their advocacy. Thus even 
the profligate part of the profession might be reformed by mo- 
tives of interest if not from choice. Want of credit might be 
want of practice ; for it might eventually be almost equivalent 
to the loss of a cause to entrust it to a bad man. The effects 
would extend to the public. If none but uprij#it men could 
be efficient advocates, and if upright men would not advocate 
vicious causes, vicious causes would not be prosecuted. But 
if such be the probable or even the possible results of sterling 
integrity, if it might be the means of reforming the practice of 
a large and influential profession, and of almost exterminating 
wicked litigation from a people — the obligation to practise 
this integrity is proportionately great : the amount of depend- 
ing good involves a corresponding amount of responsibility 
upon him who contributes to perpetuate the evil. 



CHAPTER VI. 

PROMISES.— LIES. 

Promises. — Definition of a promise — Parole — Extorted promises — John 
Fletcher. 

Lies. — Milton's definition — Lies in war : to robbers : to lunatics : to the 
sick — Hyperbole — Irony — Complimentary untruths — " Not at home" 
Legal documents. 

A Promise is a contract, differing from such contracts as 
a lawyer would draw up, in the circumstance that ordinarily 
it is not written. The motive for signing a contract is to give 
assurance or security to the receiver that its terms will be ful- 
filled. The same motive is the inducement to a promise. 
The general obligation of promises needs little illustration, 
because it is not disputed. Men are not left without the con- 
sciousness that what they promise, they ought to perform ; and 
thus thousands, who can give no philosophical account of the 
matter, know, with certain assurance, that if they violate their 
engagements they violate the law of God. 

Some philosophers deduce the obligation of promises from 
the expediency of fulfilling them. Doubtless fulfilment is ex- 
pedient ; but there is a shorter and a safer road to truth. To 

15 



170 



PROMISES. LIE 



promise and not to perform, is to deceive ; and deceit is pe- 
culiarly and especially condemned by Christianity. A lie 
has been defined to be " a breach of promise ;" and, since the 
Scriptures condemn lying, they condemn breaches of promise. 

Persons sometimes deceive others by making a promise 
in a sense different from that in which they know it will be 
understood. *They hope this species of deceit is less crimi- 
nal than breaking their word, and wish to gain the advantage 
of deceiving without its guilt. They dislike the shame but 
perform the act. A son has abandoned his father's house, 
and the father promises that if he returns, he shall be received 
with open arms. The son returns, the father " opens his arms" 
to receive him, and then proceeds to treat him with rigour. 
This father falsifies his promise as truly as if he had specifi- 
cally engaged to treat him with kindness. The sense in which 
a promise binds a person, is the sense in which he knows it is 
accepted by the other party. 

It is very possible to promise without speaking. Those 
who purchase at auctions frequently advance on the price by 
a sign or a nod. An auctioneer, in selling an estate says, 
'^Nine hundred and ninety pounds are offered." He who 
makes the customary sign to indicate an advance of ten pounds, 
promises to give a thousand. — A person who brings up his 
children or others in the known and encouraged expectation 
that he will provide for them, promises to provide for them. 
A shipmaster promises to deliver a pipe of wine at the ac- 
customed port, although he may have made no written and no 
verbal engagement respecting it. 

Parole, such as is taken of military men, is of imperative 
obligation. The prisoner who escapes by breach of parole, 
ought to be regarded as the perpetrator of an aggravated crime : 
aggravated, since his word was accepted, as he knows, be- 
cause peculiar reliance was placed upon it, and since he adds 
to the ordinary guilt of breach of promise, that of casting sus- 
picion and entailing suffering upon other men. If breach 
of parole were general, parole would not be taken. It is one 
of the anomalies which are presented by the adherents to the 
law of honour, that they do not reject from their society the 
man who impeaches their respectability and his own, Avhilst 
they reject the man who really impeaches neither the one nor 
the other. — To say I am a man of honour and therefore you 
may rely upon my word ; and then, as soon as it is accepted, 
to violate that word is no ordinary deceit. An upright man 
never broke parole. 

Promises are not binding if performance is unlawful. Some- 



CHAP. VI.] 



PROMISES. — -LIES. 



171 



times men promise to commit a wicked act — even to assassina- 
tion ; but a man is not required to commit murder because he 
has promised to commit it. Thus, in the Christian Scriptures, 
the son who had said, " I will not" work in the vineyard, and 
" afterwards repented and went," is spoken of with approba- 
tion : his promise was not binding, because fulfilment would 
have been wrong. Cranmer, whose religious firmness was 
overcome in the prospect of the stake, recanted ; that is, he 
promised to abandon the protestant faith. Neither was his 
promise binding. To have regarded it would have been a 
crime. The offence both of Cranmer and of the son in the 
parable, consisted not in violating their promises, but in making 
them. 

Some scrupulous persons appear to attach a needless obli- 
gation to expressions which they employ in the form of pro- 
mises. You ask a lady if she will join a party in a walk ; 
she declines, but presently recollecting some inducement to 
go, she is in doubt whether her refusal does not oblige her to 
stay at home. Such a person should recollect, that her refu- 
sal does not partake of the character of a promise : there is 
no other party to it ; she comes under no engagement to an- 
other. She only expresses her present intention, which in- 
tention she is at liberty to alter. 

Many promises are conditional though the conditions are 
not expressed. A man says to some friends, I will dine with 
you at two o'clock ; but as he is preparing to go, his child 
meets with an accident which requires his attention. This 
man does not violate a promise by absenting himself, because 
such promises are in fact made and excepted with the tacit un- 
derstanding that they are subject to such conditions. No one 
would expect, when his friend engaged to dine with him, that 
he intended to bind himself to come, though he left a child 
unassisted with a fractured arm. Accordingly, when a per- 
son means to exclude such conditions he says, " I will cer- 
tainly do so and so if I am living and able." 

Yet even to seem to disregard an engagement is an evil. 
To an ingenuous and Christian mind there is always some- 
thing painful in not performing it. Of this evil the principal 
source is gratuitously brought upon us by the habit of using 
unconditional terms for conditional engagements. That which 
is only intention should be expressed as intention. It is bet- 
ter, and more becoming the condition of humanity, to say, I 
intend to do a thing, than, I will do a thing. The recollection 
of our dependency upon uncontrollable circumstances should 
be present with us even in little affairs — " Go to now, ye that 



172 



PRO?<IISES. LIES. 



[ESSAY II. 



say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city and buy 
and sell and get gain : whereas ye know not what shall be on 
the morrow. — Ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall 
live, and do this or that." Not indeed that the sacred name 
of God is to be introduced to express the conditions of our 
little engagements ; but the principle should never be forgotten 
— that we know not what shall be on the morrow. 

Respecting the often discussed question, whether extorted 
promises are binding, there has been, I suspect, a general 
Avant of advertence to one- important point. What is an ex- 
torted promise 1 If by an extorted promise, is meant a pro- 
mise that is made involuntarily, without the concurrence of 
the will ; if it is the effect of any ungovernable impulse, and 
made without the consciousness of the party — then it is not a 
promise. This may happen. Fear or agitation may be so 
great that a person really does not know what he says or 
does : and in such a case a man's promises do not bind him 
any more than the promises of a man in a fit of insanity. 
But if by an " extorted" promise it is only meant that very 
powerful inducements were held out to making it, inducements 
however which did not take away the power of choice — then 
these promises are in strictness voluntary, and like all other 
voluntary engagements, they ought to be fulfilled. But perhaps 
fulfilment itself is unlawful. Then you may not fulfil it. The 
offence consists in making such engagements. It will be said, 
a robber threatened to take my life unless I would promise to 
reveal the place where my neighbour's money was deposited. 
Ought I not to make the promise in order to save my life ? 
No. Here, in reality, is the origin of the difficulties and the 
doubts. To rob your neighbour is criminal ; to enable an- 
other man to rob him is criminal too. Instead therefore of 
discussing the obligation of " extorted" promises, we should 
consider whether such promises may lawfully be made. The 
prospect of saving life is ©ne of the utmost inducements to 
make them, and yet, amongst those things which we are to 
hold subservient to our Christian fidelity, is our " own life 
also." If, however, giving way to the weakness of nature, a 
person makes the promise, he should regulate his perform- 
ance by the ordinary principles. Fulfil the promise unless 
fulfilment be wrong : and if, in estimating the propriety of 
fulfilling it, any difficulty arises, it must be charged not to the 
imperfection of moral principles, but to the entanglement in 
which we involve ourselves by having begun to deviate from 
rectitude. If we had not unlawfully made the promise we 
should have had no difficulty in ascertaining our subsequent 



CHAP. VI.] 



PROMISES. LIES. 



173 



duty. The traveller who does not desert the proper road, 
easily finds his way ; he who once loses sight of it, has many 
difficulties in returning. 

The history of that good man John Fletcher (La Flechere) 
affords an example to our purpose. Fletcher had a brother, 
De Gons, and a nephew, a profligate youth. This youth 
came one day to his uncle De Gons, and holding up a pistol, 
declared he would instantly shoot him if he did not give him 
an order for five hundred crowns. De Gons in terror gave it ; 
and the nephew then, under the same threat, required him 
solemnly to promise that he would not prosecute him ; and 
De Gons made the promise accordingly. That is what is 
called an extorted promise, and an extorted gift. How, in 
similar circumstances, did Fletcher act ? This youth after- 
wards went to him, told him of the " present" which'De Gons 
had made, and showed him the order. Fletcher suspected 
some fraud, and thinking it right to prevent its success, he 
put the order in his pocket. It was at the risk of his life. 
The young man instantly presented his pistol, declaring that 
he would fire if he did not deliver it up. Fletcher did not 
submit to the extortion : he told him that his life was secure 
under the protection of God, refused to deliver up the order, 
and severely remonstrated with his nephew on his profligacy. 
The young man was restrained and softened ; and before he 
left his uncle, gave him many assurances that he would amend 
his life. — De Gons might have been perplexed with doubts as 
to the obligation of his " extorted" promise : — Fletcher could 
have no doubts to solve. 

LIES. 

The guilt of lying, like that of many other offences, has 
been needlessly founded upon its ill effects. These effects 
constitute a good reason for adhering to truth, but they are 
not the greatest nor the best. " Putting away lying, speak 
every man truth with his neighbour."* " Ye shall not steal, 
neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another."! " The law 
is made for unholy and profane, for murderers — for liars. "J 
It may afford the reader some instruction, to observe with what 
crimes lying is associated in Scripture — with perjury, and 
murder, and parricide. Not that it is necessary to suppose 
that the measure of guilt of these crimes is equal, but that 
the guilt of all is great. With respect to lying, there is no 
trace in these passages that its guilt is conditional upon its ef- 

* Eph. iv. 25. t Lev. xix. 11. $ 1 Tim. i. 9, 10. 

15* 



174 



PROMISES.- — LIES. 



[ESSAY II. 



fects, or that it is not always, and for whatever purpose, pro- 
hibited by the Divine Will. 

A lie is, uttering what is not true when the speaker pro- 
fesses to utter truth, or when he knows it is expected by the 
hearer. I do not perceive that any looser definition is al- 
lowable, because every looser definition would permit deceit. 

Milton's definition, considering the general tenor of his 
character, was very lax. He says, " Falsehood is incurred 
when any one, from a dishonest motive, either perverts the 
truth or utters what is false to one to whom it is his duty to 
speak the truth"* To whom is it not our duty to speak the 
truth ? What constitutes duty but the will of God 1 and where 
is it found that it is his will that we should sometimes lie ? 
— But another condition is proposed : In order to constitute a 
lie, the motive to it must, be dishonest. Is not all deceit dis- 
honesty ; and can any one utter a lie without deceit ? A man 
who travels in the Arctic regions comes home and writes a 
narrative professedly faithful, of his adventures, and decorates 
it with marvellous incidents which never happened, and sto- 
ries of wonders which he never saw. You tell this man he 
has been passing lies upon the public. Oh no, he says, I had not 
" a dishonest motive." I only meant to make readers wonder. 
— Milton's mode of substantiating his doctrine, is worthy of 
remark. He makes many references for authority to the 
Hebrew Scriptures, but not one to the Christian. The reason 
is plain though perhaps he was not aware of it, that the purer 
moral system which the Christian Lawgiver introduced, did 
not countenance the doctrine. Another argument is so feeble 
that it may well be concluded no valid argument can be found. 
If it had been discoverable would not Milton have found it ? 
He says, " It is universally admitted that feints and stratagems 
in war, when unaccompanied by perjury or breach of faith, 
do not fall under the description of falsehood. — It is scarcely 
possible to execute any of the artifices of war, without openly 
uttering the greatest untruths with the indisputable intention 
of deceiving. "f And so, because the " greatest untruths" are 
uttered in conducting one of the most flagitious departments 
of the most unchristian system in the world, we are told, in a 
system of Christian Doctrine, that untruths are lawful ! 

Paley's philosophy is yet more lax : he says that we may 
tell a falsehood to a person who " has no right to know the 
truth."J What constitutes a right to know the truth it were 
not easy to determine. But if a man has no right to know 

* Christian Doctrine, p. 658. t Id. 659. X Mor. and Pol. Phil, 
b. 3. p. 1. c 15. 



CHAP. VI.] PROMISES. LIES. 



175 



the truth — withhold it ; but do not utter a lie. A man has no 
right to know how much property I possess. If, however, 
he impertinently chooses to ask, what am I to do 1 Refuse to 
tell him, says Christian morality. What am I to do 1 Tell 
Jam it is ten times as great as it is, says the morality of Paley. 

To say that when a man is tempted to employ a falsehood, 
he is to consider the degree of " inconveniency which results 
from the want of confidence in such cases,"* and to employ 
the falsehood or not as this degree shall prescribe, is surely 
to trifle with morality. What is the hope that a man will 
decide aright, who sets about such a calculation at such 
a time ? Another kind of falsehood which it is said is law- 
ful, is that "to a robber, to conceal your property." A man 
gets into my house, and desires to know where he shall find 
my plate. I tell him it is in a chest in such a room, knowing 
that it is in a closet in another. By such a falsehood I might 
save my property or possibly my life ; but if the prospect of 
doing this be a sufficient reason for violating the Moral Law, 
there is no action which we may not lawfully commit. May 
a person, in order so to save his property or life, commit par- 
ricide ? Every reader says, No. But where is the ground 
of the distinction ? If you may lie for the sake of such ad- 
vantages, why may you not kill ? What makes murder un- 
lawful but that which makes lying unlawful too ? No man 
surely will say that we must make distinctions in the atrocity 
of such actions, and that though it is not lawful for the sake 
of advantage to commit an act of a certain intensity of guilt, 
yet is lawful to commit one of a certain gradation less. Such 
doctrine would be purely gratuitous and unfounded : it would 
be equivalent to saying that we are at liberty to disobey the 
Divine Laws when we think fit. The case is very simple : 
If I may tell a falsehood to a robber in order to save my pro- 
perty, I may commit parricide for the same purpose ; for ly- 
ing and parricide are placed together and jointly condemnedf 
in the revelation from God. 

Then we are told that we may " tell a falsehood to a mad- 
man for his own advantage," and this because it is beneficial. 
Dr. Carter may furnish an answer : he speaks of the Female 
Lunatic Asylum, Saltpetriere in Paris, and says, ¥ The great 
object to which the views of the officers of La Saltpetriere 
are directed, is to gain the confidence of the patients ; and 
this object is generally attained by gentleness, by appearing 
to take an interest in their affairs, by a decision of character 
equally remote from the extremes of indulgence and severity, 

* Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 3. p. h c. 15. t 1 Tim. i. 9, 10. 



176 



PROMISES.-— LIES. 



[ESSAY II. 



and by the most scrupulous observance of good faith. Upon 
this latter, particular stress seems to be laid by M. Pinel, who 
remarks 'that insane persons, like children, lose all confi- 
dence and all respect if you fail in your word towards them ; 
and they immediately set their ingenuity to work to deceive 
and circumvent you.' "* What then becomes of the doctrine 
of " telling falsehoods to madmen for their own advantage . ? " 
It is pleasant thus to find the evidence of experience enforcing 
the dictates of principle, and that what morality declares to 
be right, facts declare to be expedient. 

Persons frequently employ falsehoods to a sick man who 
cannot recover, lest it should discompose his mind. This is 
called kindness, although an earnest preparation for death 
may be at stake upon their speaking the truth. There is a 
peculiar inconsistency sometimes exhibited on such occa- 
sions : the persons who will not discompose a sick man for 
the sake of his interests in futurity, will discompose him 
without scruple if he has not made his will. Is a bequest of 
more consequence to the survivor, than a hope full of immor- 
tality to the dying man ? 

It is curious to remark how zealously persons reprobate 
" pious frauds ;" that is, lies for the religious benefit of the 
deceived party. Surely if any reason for employing false- 
hood be a good one, it is the prospect of effecting religious 
benefit. How is it then that we so freely condemn these 
falsehoods, whilst we contend for others which are used fol 
less important purposes ? 

Still, not every expression that is at variance with facts is 
a lie, because there are some expressions in which the speaker 
does not pretend, and the hearer does not expect, literal truth. 
Of this class are hyperboles and jests, fables and tales of pro- 
fessed fiction : of this class too, are parables, such as are 
employed in the New Testament. In such cases affirmative 
language is used in the same terms as if the allegations were 
true, yet as it is known that it does not profess to narrate facts, 
no lie is uttered. It is the same with some kinds of irony: 
" Cry aloud," said Elijah to the priests of the idol, "for he is 
a god, peradventure he sleepeth." And yet, because a given 
untruth is not a lie, it does not therefore follow that it is 
innocent : for it is very possible to employ such expressions 
without any sufficient justification. A man who thinks he 
can best inculcate virtue through a fable, may write one : he 
who desires to discountenance an absurdity, may employ 
irony. Yet every one should use as little of such language 
* Account of the Principal Hospitals in France, &e. 



I 

# 

CHAP. VI.] PROMISES. LIES. 177 

as he can, because it is frequently dangerous language. The 
man who familiarizes himself to a departure from literal truth, 
is in danger of departing from it without reason and without 
excuse. Some of these departures are like lies ; so much 
like them that both speaker and hearer may reasonably ques- 
tion whether they are lies or not. The lapse from untruths 
which can deceive no one, to those which are intended to 
deceive, proceeds by almost imperceptible gradations on the 
scale of evil : and it is not the part of wisdom to approach 
the verge of guilt. Nor is it to be forgotten, that language, 
professedly fictitious, is not always understood to be such by 
those who hear it. This applies especially to the case of 
children — that is, of mankind during that period of life in 
which they are acquiring some of their first notions of moral- 
ity. The boy who hears his father using hyperboles and 
irony with a grave countenance, probably thinks he has his 
father's example for telling lies among his schoolfellows. 

Amongst the indefensible untruths which often are not lies, 
are those which factitious politeness enjoins. Such are com 
pliments and complimentary subscriptions, and many other 
untruths of expression and of action which pass currently in 
the world. These are, no. doubt, often estimated at their 
value : the receiver knows that they are base coin though 
they shine like the good. Now, although it is not to be pre- 
tended that such expressions, so estimated, are lies, yet I will 
venture to affirm that the reader, cannot set up for them any 
tolerable defence ; and if he cannot show that they are right 
he may be quite sure that they are wrong. A defence has 
however been attempted : " How much is happiness increased 
by the general adoption of a system of concerted and limited 
deceit ! He from whose doctrine it flows that we are to be 
in no case hypocrites, would, in mere manners, reduce us to 
a degree of barbarism beyond that of the rudest savage." We 
do not enter here into such questions as whether a man may 
smile when his friend calls upon him, though he would rather 
just then that he had staid away. Whatever the reader may 
think of these questions, the " system of deceit" which passes 
in the world cannot be justified by the decision. There is 
no fear that " a degree of barbarism beyond that of the rudest 
savage" would ensue, if this system were amended. The 
first teachers of Christianity, who will not be charged with 
being in " any case hypocrites," both recommended and prac- 
tised gentleness and courtesy.* And as to the increase of 
happiness which is assumed to result from this system of 
* 1 Peter, ii. 1. Tit. iii. 2. 1 Feter, iii. 8 



178 



PROMISES. — LIES. 



[ESSAY ft. 



deceit, the fact is of a very questionable kind. No society I 
believe sufficiently discourages it ; but that society which 
discourages it probably as much as any other, certainly en- 
joys its full average of happiness. But the apology proceeds, 
and more seriously errs : " The employment of falsehood for 
the production of good, cannot be more unworthy of the Di- 
vine Being than the acknowledged employment of rapine and 
murder for the same purpose."* Is it then not perceived that 
to employ the wickedness of man is a very different thing 
from holding its agents innocent ? Some of those whose wick- 
edness has been thus employed, have been punished for that 
wickedness. Eve» to show that the Deity has employed 
falsehood for the production of good, would in no degree 
establish the doctrine that falsehood is right. 

The childish and senseless practice of requiring servants 
to " deny" their masters, has had many apologists — I suppose 
because many perceive that it is wrong. It is not always 
true that such a servant does not in strictness lie ; for, how 
well soever the folly may be understood by the gay world, 
some who knock at their doors have no other idea than that 
they may depend upon the servant's word. Of this the ser- 
vant is sometimes conscious, and to these persons therefore 
he who denies his master, lies. An uninitiated servant suffers 
a shock to his moral principles when he is first required to 
tell these falsehoods. It diminishes his previous abhorrence 
of lying, and otherwise deteriorates his moral character. 
Even if no such ill consequences resulted from this foolish 
custom, there is objection to it which is short, but sufficient — 
nothing can be said in its defence. 

Amongst the prodigious multiplicity of falsehoods which 
are practised in legal processes, the system of pleading not 
guilty is one that appears perfectly useless. By the rule, 
that all who refuse to plead were presumed to be guilty, pris- 
oners Were in some sort compelled to utter this falsehood 
before they could have the privilege of a trial. The law is 
lately relaxed ; so that a prisoner, if he chooses, may refuse 
to plead at all. Still, only a part of the evil is removed, for 
even now, to keep silent may be construed into a tacit ac- 
knowledgment of guilt, so that the temptation to falsehood is 
still exhibited. There is no other use in the custom of plead- 
ing guilty or not guilty, but that, if a man desires to acknow- 
ledge his guilt, he may have the opportunity ; and this he 
may have wimout any custom of the sort. — It cannot be 
doubted that the multitude of falsehoods which obtain in legal 
* Edin. Rev. vol. 1, Art. Belsham's Philosophy of the Mind. 



CHAP. VII.] 



OATHS. 



179 



documents during the progress of a suit at law, have a power- 
ful tendency to propagate habits of mendacity. A man sells 
goods to the value of twenty pounds to another, and is obliged 
to enforce payment by law. The lawyer draws up, for the 
creditor, a Declaration in Assumpsit, stating that the debtor 
owes him forty pounds for goods sold, forty pounds for 
work done, forty pounds for money lent, forty pounds for 
money expended on his account, forty pounds for money re- 
ceived by the debtor for the creditor, and so on — and that, 
two or three hundred pounds being thus due to the creditor, 
he has a just demand of twenty pounds upon the debtor ! 
These falsehoods are not one half of what an every day De- 
claration in Assumpsit contains. If a person refuses to give 
up a hundred head of cattle which a farmer has placed in his 
custody, the farmer declares that he " casually lost" them, 
and that the other party " casually found" them : and then, 
instead of saying he casually lost a hundred head of cattle, 
he declares that it was a thousand bulls, a thousand cows, a 
thousand oxen, and a thousand heifers !* I do not think that 
the habits of mendacity which such falsehoods are likely 
to encourage are the worst consequences of this unhappy 
system, but they are seriously bad. No man who considers 
the influence of habit upon the mind, can doubt that an ingen- 
uous abhorrence of lying is likely to be diminished by famil- 
iarity with these extravagant falsehoods. 



CHAPTER VII. 

OATHS. 

THEIR MORAL CHARACTER— THEIR EFFICACY AS 
SECURITIES OF VERACITY— THEIR EFFECTS. 

A curse — Immorality, of oaths — Oaths of the ancient Jews — Milton — 
Paley — The High Priest's adjuration — Early Christians — Inefficacy of 
oaths — Motives to veracity — Religious sanctions : Public opinion ; Le- 
gal penalties — Oaths in Evidence: Parliamentary Evidence: Courts 
Martial — The United States — Effects of oaths: Falsehood — General 
obligations. 

" An oath is that whereby we call God to witness the truth 
of what we say, with a curse upon ourselves, either implied 
or expressed, should it prove false."! 

* See the Form, 2, Chitty on Pleading, p. 370. t Milton : Chris- 
tian Doctrine, p. 579. 



180 



OATHS. 



[ESSAY II. 



A Curse. — Now supposing the Christian Scriptures to 
contain no information respecting the moral character of oaths, 
how far is it reasonable, or prudent, or reverent, for a man to 
stake his salvation upon the truth of what he says ? To bring 
forward so tremendous an event as " everlasting destruction 
from the presence of the Lord," in attestation of the offence 
perhaps of a poacher or of the claim to a field, is surely to 
make unwarrantably light of the most awful things. This 
consideration applies, even if a man is sure that he speaks 
the truth ; but who is, beforehand, sure of this ? Oaths in 
evidence, for example, are taken before the testimony is given. 
A person swears that he will speak the truth. Who, I ask, 
is sure that he will do this ? Who is sure that the embarrass- 
ment of a public examination, that the ensnaring questions of 
counsel, that the secret influence of inclination or interest, 
will not occasion him to utter one inaccurate expression ? 
Who, at any rate, is so sure of this that it is rational, or justi- 
fiable, specifically to stake his salvation upon his accuracy ? 
Thousands of honest men have been mistaken ; their allega- 
tions have been sincere, but untrue. And if this should be 
thought not a legitimate objection, let it be remembered, that 
few men's minds are so sternly upright, that they can answer 
a variety of questions upon subjects on which their feelings, 
and wishes, and interest are involved, without some little 
deduction from the truth, in speaking of matters that are 
against their cause, or some little overcolouring of facts in 
their own favour. It is a circumstance of constant occurrence, 
that even a well-intentioned witness adds to or deducts a 
little from the truth. Who then, amidst such temptation, 
would make, who ought to make, his hope of heaven dependent 
on his strict adherence to accurate veracity ? And if such 
considerations indicate the impropriety of swearing upon 
subjects which affect the lives, and liberties, and property of 
others, how shall we estimate the impropriety of using these 
dreadful imprecations to attest the delivery of a summons for 
a debt of half-a-crown ! 

These are moral objections to the use of oaths indepen- 
dently of any reference to the direct Moral Law. Another 
objection of the same kind is this : To take an oath is to 
assume that the Deity will become a party in the case — that 
we can call upon Him, when we please, to follow up by the 
exercise of his xUmighty power, the contracts (often the very 
insignificant contracts) which men make with men. Is it not 
irreverent, and for that reason immoral, to call upon him to 
exercise this power in reference to subjects which are so in- 



CHAP. VII.] 



OATHS. 



181 



significant that other men will scarcely listen with patience 
to their details ? The objection goes even further. A robber 
exacts an oath of the man whom he has plundered, that he 
will not attempt to pursue or prosecute him. Pursuit and 
prosecution are duties ; so then the oath assumes that the 
Deity will punish the swearer in futurity if he fulfils a duty. 
Confederates in a dangerous and wicked enterprise bind one 
another to secrecy and to mutual assistance, by oaths — assu- 
ming that God will become a party to their wickedness, and if 
they do not perpetrate it will punish them for their virtue. 

Upon every subject of questionable rectitude that is sanc- 
tioned by habit and the usages of society, a person should 
place himself in the independent situation of an enquirer. 
He should not seek for arguments to defend an existing prac- 
tice, but should simply enquire what our practice ought to be. 
One of the most powerful causes of the slow amendment of 
public institutions, consists in this circumstance, that most 
men endeavour rather to justify what exists than to consider 
whether it ought to exist or not. This cause operates upon 
the question of oaths. We therefore invite the reader, in con- 
sidering the citation which follows, to suppose himself to be 
one of the listeners at the Mount — to know nothing of the cus- 
toms of the present day, and to have no desire to justify them. 

" Ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, 
Thou shalt not forswear thyself but shalt perform unto the 
Lord thine oaths. But I say unto you, Swear not at all : nei- 
ther by heaven for it is God's throne, nor by the earth for it is 
his footstool, neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the 
Great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because 
thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your 
communication be yea yea, nay nay ; for whatsoever is more 
than these, cometh of evil."* 

If a person should take a New Testament, and read these 
words to ten intelligent Asiatics who had never heard of them 
before, does any man believe that a single individual of them 
would think that the words did prohibit all oaths ? I lay 
stress upon this consideration : if ten unbiassed persons 
would, at the first hearing, say the prohibition was universal, 
we have no contemptible argument that that is the real mean- 
ing of the words. For to whom were the words addressed ? 
Not to schoolmen, of whom it was known that they would 
make nice distinctions and curious investigations ; not to men 
of learning, who were in the habit of cautiously weighing the 
import of words — but to a multitude — a mixed and unschooled 
* Matt. v. 33—37. 
16 



182 OATHS. [essay II. 

multitude. It was to such persons that the prohibition was 
addressed ; it was to such apprehensions that its form was 
adapted. 

"It. hath been said of old time, Thou shalt not forswear 
thyself." Why refer to what was said of old time 1 For 
this reason assuredly ; to point out that the present requisi- 
tions were different from the former ; that what was prohibited 
now was different from what was prohibited before. And 
what was prohibited before ? Swearing falsely — Swearing 
and not performing. What then could be prohibited now ? 
Swearing truly — Swearing, even, and performing: that is, 
swearing at all ; for it is manifest that if truth may not be at- 
tested by an oath, no oath may be taken. Of old time it was 
said, " Ye shall not swear by my name falsely."* " If a man 
swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond, he shall not break 
his word."f There could be no intelligible purpose in con- 
tradistinguishing -the new precept from these, but to point out 
a characteristic difference ; and there is no intelligible char- 
acteristic difference but that which denounces all oaths. 
Such were the views of the early Christians. " The old 
law," says one of them, " is satisfied with the honest keeping 
of the oath, but Christ cuts off the opportunity of perjury."^ 
In acknowledging that this prefatory reference to the former 
law, is in my view absolutely conclusive of our Christian 
duty, I would remark as an extraordinary circumstance, that 
Dr. Paley, in citing the passage, omits this introduction and 
takes no notice of it in his argument. 

" I say unto you, Swear not at all." The words are abso- 
lute and exclusive. 

" Neither by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by Jerusalem, 
nor by thy own head." Respecting this enumeration it is said 
that it prohibits swearing by certain objects, but not by all 
objects. To which a sufficient answer is found in the parallel 
passage in James : " Swear not," he says ; " neither by heav- 
en, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath."§ This 
mode of prohibition, by which an absolute and universal rule 
is first proposed and then followed by certain examples of the 
prohibited things, is elsewhere employed in Scripture. " Thou 
shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make 
unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that 
is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is 
in the water under the earth." || No man supposes that this 
after-enumeration was designed to restrict the obligation of 

* Lev. xix. 12. t Numb. xxx. 2. t Basil. 

§ James v. 12. || Exod. xx. 3. See also xx. 4. 



CHAP. VII.] 



OATHS. 



183 



the law — Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Yet it 
were as reasonable to say that it was lawful to make idols in 
the form of imaginary monsters because they were not men- 
tioned in the enumeration, as that it is lawful to swear any 
given kind of oath because it is not mentioned in the enumer- 
ation. Upon this part of the prohibition it is curious that 
two contradictory opinions are advanced by the defenders of 
oaths. The first class of reasoners says, The prohibition 
allows us to swear by the Deity, but disallows swearing by 
inferior things. The second class says, The prohibition 
allows swearing by inferior things, but disallows swearing by 
the Deity. Of the first class is Milton. The injunction, he 
says, "does not prohibit us from swearing by the name of 
God — We are only commanded not to swear by heaven, &c."* 
But here again the Scripture itself furnishes a conclusive 
answer. It asserts that to swear by heaven is to swear by 
the Deity : " He that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the 
throne of God, and by Him that sitteth thereon."f To pro- 
hibit swearing by heaven, is therefore to prohibit swearing by 
God. — Amongst the second class is Dr. Paley. He says, 
" On account of the relation which these things, [the heavens, 
the earth, &c] bore to the Supreme Being, to swear by any 
of them was in effect and substance to swear by Him ; for 
which reason our Saviour says, Swear not at all; that is, neither 
directly by God nor indirectly by anything related to him. "J 
But if we are thus prohibited from swearing by any-thing related 
to Him, how happens it that Paley proceeds to justify judicial 
oaths ? Does not the judicial deponent swear by something- 
related to God ? Does he not swear by something much more 
nearly related than the earth or our own heads ? Is not our 
hope of salvation more nearly related than a member of our 
bodies ? — But after he has thus taken pains to show that 
swearing by the Almighty was especially forbidden, he enfor- 
ces his general argument by saying that Christ did swear by 
the Almighty ! He says that the high priest examined our 
Saviour upon oath, " by the living God ;" which oath he took. 
This is wonderful ; and the more wonderful because of these 
two arguments the one immediately follows the other. It is 
contended, within half a dozen lines, first that Christ forbade 
swearing by God, and next that he violated his own command. 

" But let your communication be yea yea, nay nay." This 
is remarkable : it is positive superadded to negative com- 
mands. We ars told not only what we ought not, but what 

* Christ. Doc. p. 582. t Matt, xxiii. 22. t Mor. and Pol. Phil, 
b. 3, p. 1, c. 16. 



184 



OATHS. 



[ESSAY II 



we ought to do. It has indeed been said that the expression 
" your communication," fixes the meaning to apply to the or- 
dinary intercourse of life. But to this there is a fatal objec- 
tion : the whole prohibition sets out with a reference not to 
conversational language but to solemn declarations on solemn 
occasions. " Oaths, Oaths to the Lord," are placed at the head 
of the passage ; and it is too manifest to be insisted upon that 
solemn declarations, and not every-day talk, were the subject 
of the prohibition. 

" Whatsoever is more than these, cometh of evil." This 
is indeed most accurately true. Evil is the foundation of 
oaths : it is because men are bad that it is supposed oaths are 
needed : take away the wickedness of mankind, and jve shall 
still have occasion for No and Yes, but we shall need nothing 
"more than these." And this consideration furnishes a dis- 
tinct motive to a good man to decline to swear. To take an 
oath is tacitly to acknowledge that this " evil" exists in his 
own mind — that with him Christianity has not effected its des- 
tined objects. 

From this investigation of the passage, it appears manifest 
that all swearing upon all occasions is prohibited. Yet the 
ordinary opinion, or rather perhaps the ordinary defence is, 
that the passage has no reference to judicial oaths. " We 
explain our Saviour's words to relate not to judicial oaths but 
to the practice of vain, wanton, and unauthorized swearing in 
common discourse." To this we have just seen that there is 
one conclusive answer : our Saviour distinctly and specifically 
mentions, as the subject of his instructions, solemn oaths. 
But there is another conclusive answer even upon our oppo- 
nents' own showing. They say first, that Christ described 
particular forms of oaths which might be employed, and next, 
that his precepts referred to 'wanton swearing ; that is to say, 
that Christ described what particular forms of wanton swearing 
he allowed and what he disallowed ! You cannot avoid this 
monstrous conclusion. If Christ spoke only of vain and 
wanton swearing, and if he described the modes that were 
lawful, he sanctioned wanton swearing provided we swear in 
the prescribed form. 

With such distinctness of evidence as to the universality of 
the prohibition of oaths by Jesus Christ, it is not in strictness 
necessary to refer to those passages in the Christian Scriptures 
which some persons adduce in favor of their employment. If 
Christ have prohibited them, nothing else can prove them to 
be right. Our reference to these passages will accordingly 
be short. 



CHAP. VII.J 



OATHS. 



185 



" I adjure thee by the living God that thou tell us whether 
thou be the Christ, the son of God." To those who allege 
that Christ, in answering to this "Thou hast said," took an 
oath, a sufficient answer has already been intimated. If 
Christ then took an oath, he swore by the Deity, and this is 
precisely the very kind of oath which it is acknowledged he 
himself forbade. But what imaginable reason could there be 
for examining him upon oath? Who ever heard of calling 
upon a prisoner to swear that he was guilty ? Nothing was 
wanted but a simple declaration that he was the Son of God. 
With this view the proceeding was extremely natural. Find- 
ing that to the less urgent solicitation he made no reply, the 
high priest proceeded to the more urgent. Schleusner ex- 
pressly remarks upon the passage that the words, I adjure, do 
not here mean, M I make to swear or put upon oath," but " I 
solemnly and in the name of God exhort and enjoin." This 
is evidently the natural and the only natural meaning ; just as 
it was the natural meaning when the evil spirit said, " I adjure 
thee by the living God that thou torment me not." The evil 
spirit surely did not administer an oath. 

." God is my witness that without ceasing I make mention 
of you always in my prayers."* That the Almighty was wit- 
ness to the subject of his prayers is most true'; but to state 
this truth is not to swear. Neither this language nor that 
which is indicated below, contains the characteristics of an 
oath according to the definitions even of those who urge the 
expressions. None of them contain according to Milton's 
definition, " a curse upon ourselves ;" nor according to Paley's 
" an invocation of God's vengeance." Similar language, but 
in a more emphatic form is employed in writing to the Co- 
rinthian converts. It appears from 2 Cor. ii. that Paul had 
resolved not again to go to Corinth in heaviness, lest he 
should make them sorry. And to assure them why he had 
made this resolution he says, "I call God for a record upon 
my soul that to spare you I came not as yet unto Corinth." 
In order to slunv this to be an oath, it will be necessary to 
show that the apostle imprecated the vengeance of God if he 
did not speak the truth. Who can show this 1 — The expression 
appears to me to be only an emphatical mode of saying, God 
is witness ; or as the expression is sometimes employed in 
the present day, God knows that such was my endeavour or 
desire. 

The next and the last argument is of a very exceptionable 
class ; it is founded upon silence. " For men verily swear 
* Rom. i. 9. See also 1 Thess. ii. 5. and Gal. i. 20. 
16* 



186 



OATHS. 



[ESSAY II. 



by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is to them an end 
of all strife."* Respecting this it is said that it " speaks of 
the custom of swearing judicially without any mark of cen- 
sure or disapprobation." Will it then be contended that what- 
ever an apostle mentions without reprobating, he approves ? 
The same apostle speaks just in the same manner of the pa- 
gan games ; of running a race for prizes and of " striving for 
the mastery." Yet who would admit the argument, that because 
Paul did not then censure the games, he thought them right ! 
The existing customs both of swearing and of the games, are 
adduced merely by way of illustration of the writer's subject. 

Respecting the lawfulness of oaths, then, as determined by 
the Christian Scriptures, how does the balance of evidence 
stand ? On the one side, we have plain emphatic al prohibi- 
tions — prohibitions, of which the distinctness is more fully 
proved the more they are investigated ; on the other we have 
— counter precepts ? No ; it is not even pretended ; but we 
have examples of the use of language, of which it is saying 
much to say, that it is doubtful whether they are oaths or not. 
How, then, would the man of reason and of philosophy de- 
cide ? — " Many of the Christian fathers," says Grotius, " con- 
demned all oaths without exception."! Grotius was himself 
an advocate of oaths. " I say nothing of perjury," says Ter- 
tullian, " since swearing itself is unlawful to Christians."^ 
Chrysostom says, " Do not say to me, I swear for a just pur- 
pose ; it is no longer lawful for thee to swear either justly or 
unjustly. "§ " He who," says Gregory of Nysse, " has pre- 
cluded murder by taking away anger, and who has taken away 
the pollution of adultery by subduing desire, has expelled 
from our life the curse of perjury by forbidding us to swear ; 
for where there is no oath, there can be no infringement of 
it. "|| Such is the conviction which the language of Christ 
conveyed to the early converts to his pure religion ; and such 
is the conviction which I think it would convey to us if cus- 
tom had not familiarized us with the evil, and if we did not 
read the New Testament rather to find justifications of our 
practice than to discover the truth and to apply it to our con- 
duct. 

EFFICACY OF OATHS AS SECURITIES FOR VERACITY. 

Men naturally speak the truth unless they have some in- 
ducements to falsehood. When they have such inducements, 

* Heb. vi. 16. t Rights of War and Peace. t De Idol. cap. 11. 
§ In Gen. ii. Horn. xv. || In Cant. Horn. 13. 



CHAP. VII.] 



OATHS. 



187 



what is it that o^rcomes them and still prompts them to speak 
the truth 1 

Considerations of duty, founded upon religion : 
The apprehension of the ill opinion of other men : * 
The fear of legal penalties. 

I. It is obvious that the intervention of an oath is designed 
to strengthen only the first of these motives — that is, the re- 
ligious sanction. I say to strengthen the religious sanction. 
No one supposes it creates that sanction ; because people 
know that the sanction is felt to apply to falsehood as well as 
to perjury. The advantage of an oath, then, if advantage 
there be, is in the increased power which it gives to sentiments 
of duty founded upon religion. Now. it will be our endeavour 
to show that this increased power is small ; that, in fact, the 
oath, as such, adds very little to the motives to veracity. 
What class of men will the reader select in order to illustrate 
its greatest power ? 

Good men ? They will speak the truth whether without 
an oath or with it. They know that God has appended to 
falsehood as to perjury the threat of his displeasure and of 
punishment in futurity. Upon them religion possesses its 
rightful influence without the intervention of an oath. 

Bad men ? Men who care nothing for religion 1 They will 
care nothing for it though they take an oath. 

Men of ambiguous character ? Men on whom the sanc- 
tions of religion are sometimes operative and sometimes not ? 
Perhaps it will be said that to these the solemnity of an oath 
is necessary to rouse their latent apprehensions, and to bind 
them to veracity. But these persons do not go before a legal 
officer or into a court of justice as they go into a parlour or 
meet an acquaintance in the street. Recollection of mind is 
forced upon them by the circumstances of their situation. 
The court, and the forms of law, and the audience, and the 
after publicity of the evidence, fix the attention even of the 
careless. The man of only occasional seriousness is serious 
then ; and if in their hours of seriousness, such persons re- 
gard the sanctions of religion, they will regard them in a 
court of justice though without an oath. 

Yet it may be supposed by the reader that the solemnity 
of a specific imprecation of the Divine vengeance would, never- 
theless, frequently add stronger motives to adhere to truth. 
But what is the evidence of experience ? After testimony 
has been given on affirmation, the parties are sometimes exa- 
mined on the same subject upon oath. Now Pothier says, 
41 In forty years of practice I have only met two instances 



188 



OATHS. 



[ESSAY II. 



where the parties, in the case of an oath offend after evidence, 
have been prevented by a sense of religion from persisting in 
their testimonies." Two instances in forty years ; and even 
with respect to these it is to be remembered, that one great 
reason why simple affirmations do not bind men is, that their 
obligation is artificially diminished (as we shall presently see) 
by the employment of oaths. To the evidence resulting from 
these truths I know of but one limitary consideration ; and to 
this the reader must attach such weight as he thinks it de- 
serves — that a man on whom an oath had been originally 
imposed might then have been bound to veracity, who would 
not incur the shame of having lied by refusing afterwards to 
confirm his falsehoods with an oath. 

II. The next inducement to adhere to truth is the apprehen- 
sion of the ill opinion of others. And this inducement, either 
in its direct or indirect operation, will be found to be incom- 
parably more 1 powerful than that religious inducement which 
is applied by an oath as such. Not so much because religious 
sanctions are less operative than public opinion, as because 
public opinion applies or detaches the religious sanction. 
Upon this subject a serious mistake has been made ; for it 
has been contended that the influence of religious motives 
is comparatively nothing — that unless men are impelled to 
speak the truth by fear of disgrace or of legal penalties, they 
care very little for the sanctions of religion. But the truth 
is, that the sanctions of religion are, in a great degree, either 
brought into operation, or prevented from operating, by these 
secondary motives. Religious sanctions necessarily follow 
the judgments of the mind ; if a man by any means becomes 
convinced that a given action is wrong, the religious obliga- 
tion to refrain from it follows. Now, the judgments of men 
respecting right and wrong are very powerfully affected by 
public opinion. It commonly happens that that which a man 
has been habitually taught to think wrong, he does think wrong. 
Men are thus taught by public opinion. So that if the public 
attach disgrace to any species of mendacity or perjury, the 
religious sanction will commonly apply to that species. If 
there are instances of mendacity or perjury to which public 
disapprobation does not attach — to those instances the re- 
ligious sanction will commonly not apply, or apply but weakly. 
The power of public opinion in binding to veracity is there- 
fore twofold. It has its direct influence arising from the fear 
which all men feel of the disapprobation of others, and the 
indirect influence arising from the fact that public opinion 
applies the sanctions of religion. 



CHAP. VII.] 



OATHS. 



189 



III. Of the influence of legal penalties in binding to vera- 
city, little needs to be said. It is obvious that if they induce 
men to refrain from theft and violence, they will induce men 
to refrain from perjury. But it may be remarked, that the 
legal penalty tends to give vigour and efficiency to public 
opinion. He whom the law punishes as a criminal, is gen- 
erally regarded as a criminal by the world. 

Now that which we affirm is this — that unless public 
opinion or legal penalties enforce veracity, very little will be 
added by an oath to the motives to veracity more than would 
subsist in the case of simple affirmation. The observance of 
the Oxford statutes* is promised by the members on oath — 1 
yet no one observes them, They swear to observe them, 
they imprecate the Divine vengeance if they do not observe 
them, and yet they disregard them every day. The oath then 
is of no avail. An oath, as such, does not here bind men's 
consciences. And why 1 Because those sanctions by which 
men's consciences are bound, are not applied. The law ap- 
plies none : public opinion applies none : and therefore the 
religious sanction is weak ; too weak with most men to avail. 
Not that no motives founded upon religion present themselves 
to the mind ; for I doubt not there are good men who would 
refuse to take these oaths simply in consequence of religious 
motives : but constant experience shows that these men are 
comparatively few ; and if any one should say that upon them 
an oath is influential, we answer, that they are precisely the 
very persons who woidd be bound by their simple promises 
without an oath. 

The oaths of Jurymen afford another instance. Jurymen 
swear that they will give a verdict according to the evidence, 
and yet it is perfectly well known that they often assent to a 
verdict which they believe to be contrary to that evidence. 
They do not all coincide in the verdict which the foreman 
pronounces, it is indeed often impossible that they should coin- 
cide. This perjury is committed by multitudes ; yet what 
juryman cares for it, or refuses, in consequence of his oath, 
to deliver a verdict which he believes to be improper ? The 
reason that they do not care is, that the oath, as such, does not 
bind their consciences. It stands alone. The public do not 
often reprobate the violation of such oaths ; the law does not 
punish it ; jurymen learn to think that it is no harm to violate 
them ; and the resulting conclusion is, that the form of an 
oath cannot and does not supply the deficiency ; — It cannot 
and does not apply the religious sanction. 

» See p. 



190 



OATHS. 



[ESSAY II 



Step a few yards from the jury box to the witness-box, and 
you see the difference. There public opinion interposes its 
power — there the punishment of perjury impends — there the 
religious sanction is applied — and there, consequently, men 
regard the truth. If the simple intervention of an oath was 
that which bound men to veracity, they would be bound in 
the jury-box as much as at ten feet off; but it is not. 

A custom-house oath is nugatory even to a proverb. Yet 
it is an oath : yet the swearer does stake his salvation upon 
his veracity ; and still his veracity is not secured. "yVhy ? 
Because an oath, as such, applies to the minds of most men 
' little or no motive to veracity. They do not in fact think 
that their salvation is staked, necessarily, by oaths. They 
think it is either staked or not, according to certain other cir- 
cumstances quite independent of the oath itself. These cir- 
cumstances are not associated with custom-house oaths, and 
therefore they do not avail. Churchwardens' oaths are of the 
same kind. Upon these, Gisborne remarks — " In the succes- 
sive execution of the office of churchwarden, almost every 
man above the rank of a day labourer, in every parish in the 
kingdom, learns to consider the strongest sanction of truth as a 
nugatory form." This is not quite accurate. They do not learn 
to consider the strongest sanction of truth as a nugatory form, 
but they learn to consider oaths as a nugatory form. The real- 
ity is, that the sanctions of truth are not brought into operation, 
and that oaths, as such, do not bring them into operation. 

We return then to our proposition — Unless public opinion 
or legal penalties enforce veracity, very little is added by an 
oath to the motives to veracity, more than would subsist in the 
case of simple affirmation. 

It is obvious that the legislature might, if it pleased, attach 
the same penalties to falsehood as it now attaches to perjury ; 
and therefore all the motives to veracity which are furnished 
by the law in the case of oaths, might be equally furnished in 
the case of affirmation. This is in fact done by the legisla- 
ture in the case of the Society of Friends. 

It is also obvious that public opinion might be applied to af- ; 
flrmation much more powerfully than it is now. The simple 
circumstance of disusing oaths would effect this. Even now, 
when the public disapprobation is excited against a man who 
has given false evidence in a court of justice, by what is it 
excited 1 by his having broken his oath, or by his having 
given false testimony ? It is the falsehood which excites the 
disapprobation, much more than the circumstance that the false- 
hood was in spite of an oath. This public disapprobation is 



CHAP. VII.] 



OATHS. 



191 



founded upon the general perception of the guilt of false testi- 
mony and of its perniciousness. Now if affirmation only was 
employed, this public disapprobation would follow the lying 
witness, as it now follows, or nearly as it now follows, the 
perjured witness. Every thing but the mere oath would be 
the same — the fear of penalties, the fear of disgrace, the mo- 
tives of religion would remain ; and we have just shown how 
little a mere oath avails. But we have artificially diminished 
the public reprobation of lying by establishing oaths. The 
tendency of instituting oaths is manifestly to diffuse the sen- 
timent that there is a difference in the degree of obligation not 
to lie, and not to swear falsely. This difference is made, not 
so much by adding stronger motives to veracity by an oath, 
as by deducting from the motives to veracity in simple affirm- 
ations. Let the public opinion take its own healthful and un- 
obstructed course, and falsehood in evidence will quickly be 
regarded as a flagrant offence. Take away oaths, and the 
public reprobation of falsehood will immediately increase in 
power, and will bring with its increase an increasing efficiency 
in the religious sanction. The present relative estimate of 
lying and perjury is a very inaccurate standard by which to 
judge of the efficiency of oaths. We have artificially reduced 
the abhorrence of lying, and then say that that abhorrence is 
not great enough to bind men to the truth. 

Our reasoning then proceeds by these steps. Oaths are 
designed to apply a strong religious sanction : they however 
do not apply it unless they are seconded by the apprehension 
of penalties or disgrace. The apprehension of penalties and 
disgrace may be attached to falsehood, and with this appre- 
hension the religious sanction will also be attached to it. 
Therefore, all those motives which bind men to veracity may 
be applied to falsehood as well as to oaths. — In other words, 
oaths are needless. 

But in reality we have evidence of this needlessness from 
every day experience. In some of the most important of 
temporal affairs, an oath is never used. The Houses of Par- 
liament in their examinations of witnesses employ no oaths. 
They are convinced (and therefore they have proved) that the 
truth can be discovered without them. But if affirmation is 
thus a sufficient security for veracity in the great questions 
of a legislature, how can it be insufficient in the little ques- 
tions of private life ? There is a strange inconsistency here. 
That same Parliament which declares, by its every-day prac- 
tice, that oaths are needless, continues, by its every-day prac- 
tice, to impose them! Even more: those very men who 



192 



OATHS. 



[essay ii. 



themselves take oaths as a necessary qualification for their 
duties as legislators, proceed to the exercise of these duties 
upon the mere testimony of other men ! — Peers are never re- 
quired to take oaths in delivering their testimony, yet no one 
thinks that a peer's evidence in a court of justice may not be 
as much depended upon as that of him who swears. Why 
are peers in fact bound to veracity though without an oath t 
Will you say that the religious sanction is more powerful upon 
lords than upon other m«n ? The supposition were ridiculous. 
How then does it happen ? You reply, Their honour binds 
them : Very well ; that is the same as to say that public 
opinion binds them. But then, he who says that honour, or 
any thing else besides pure religious sanctions, binds men to 
veracity, impugns the very grounds upon which oaths are 
defended. 

Oath evidence again is not required by courts-martial. 
But can any man assign a reason why a person who would 
speak the truth on affirmation before military officers, would 
not speak it on affirmation before a judge ? Arbitrations too 
proceed often, perhaps generally, upon evidence of parole. 
Yet do not arbitrators discover the truth as well as courts of 
justice ? and if they did not, it would be little in favour of 
oaths, because a part of the sanction of veracity is, in the case 
of arbitrations, withdrawn. 

But we have even tried the experiment of affirmations in 
our own courts of justice, and tried it for some ages past. 
The Society of Friends uniformly give their evidence in courts 
of law on their words alone. No man imagines that their 
words do not bind them. No legal court would listen with 
more suspicion to a witness because he was a Quaker. Here 
all the motives to veracity are applied: there is the religious 
motive, which in such cases all but desperately bad men feel : 
there is the motive of public opinion : and there is the motive 
arising from the penalties of the law. If the same motives 
were applied to other men, why should they not be as effectual 
in securing veracity as they are upon the Quakers ? 

We have an example even yet more extensive. In all the 
courts of the United States of America, no one is obliged to 
take an oath. What are we to conclude ? Are the Ameri- 
cans so foolish a people that they persist in accepting affirm- 
ations knowing that they do not bind witnesses to truth ? 
Or, do the Americans really find that affirmations are suffi- 
cient ? But one answer can be given : — They find that affirm- 
ations are sufficient : they prove undeniably that oaths are 
needless. No one will imagine that virtue on the other side 



CHAP. VII.] 



OATHS. 



193 



the Atlantic is so much greater than on this, that while an af- 
firmation is sufficient for an American an oath is necessary 
here. 

So that whether we enquire into the moral lawfulness of 
oaths, they are not lawful ; or into their practical utility, they 
are of little use or of none. 

EFFECTS OF OATHS. 

There is a power and efficacy in our religion which ele- 
vates those who heartily accept it above that low moral state 
in which alone an oath can even be supposed to be of ad- 
vantage. The man who takes an oath, virtually declares that 
his word woulq^not bind him ; and this is an admission which 
no good man should make — for the sake both of his own mo- 
ral character and of the credit of religion itself. It is the 
testimony even of infidelity, that " wherever men of uncom- 
mon energy and dignity of mind have existed, they have felt 
the degradation of binding their assertions with an oath."* 
This degradation, this descent from the proper ground on 
which a man of integrity should stand, illustrates 'the propo- 
sition that whatever exceeds affirmation " cometh of evil." 
The evil origin is so palpable that you cannot comply with 
the custom without feeling that you sacrifice the dignity of 
virtue. It is related of Solon that he said, " A good man 
ought to be in that estimation that he needs not an oath ; be- 
cause it is to be reputed a lessening of his honour if he be 
forced to swear. "f If to take an oath lessened a pagan's 
honour, what must be its effect upon a Christian's purity. 

Oaths, at least the system of oaths which obtains in this 
country, tends powerfully to deprave the moral character. 
We have seen that they are continually violated — that men 
are continually referring to the most tremendous sanctions of 
religion with the habitual belief that those sanctions impose 
no practical obligation. Can this have any other tendency 
than to diminish the influence of religious sanctions upon 
other things ? If a man sets light by the divine vengeance 
in the jury box to-day, is he likely to give full weight to that 
vengeance before a magistrate to-morrow ? We cannot pre- 
vent the effects of habit. Such things will infallibly dete- 
riorate the moral character, because they infallibly diminish 
the power of those principles upon which the moral charac- 
ter is founded. 

* Godwin : Political Justice, vol. 2. p. 633. t Stoboeus : Serm. 3. 
17 



194 



OATHS. 



[ESSAY II. 



Oaths encourage falsehood. We have already seen that 
the effect of instituting oaths is to diminish the practical 
obligation of simple affirmation. The law says, You must 
speak the truth when you are upon your oath ; which is the 
same thing as to say that it is less harm to violate truth when 
you are not on your oath. The court sometimes reminds a 
witness that he is upon oath, which is equivalent to say- 
ing, If you were not, we should think less of your mendacity. 
The same lesson is inculcated by the assignation of penalties 
to perjury and not to falsehood. What is a man to conclude, 
but that the law thinks light of the crime which it does not 
punish ; and that since he may lie with impunity, it is not much 
harm to lie ? Common language bears testimony to the effect. 
The vulgar phrase, I will take my oath to it, clearly evinces 
the prevalent notion that a man may lie with less guilt when 
he does not take his oath. No answer can be made to this 
remark, unless any one can show that the extra sanction of 
an oath is so much added to the obligation which would other- 
wise attach to simple affirmation. And who can show this 1 
Experience proves the contrary : " Experience bears ample 
testimony to the fact, that the prevalence of oaths among men 
(Christians not excepted) has produced a very material and 
a very general effect in reducing their estimate of the obliga- 
tion of plain truth, in its natural and simple forms."* — " There 
is no cause of insincerity, prevarication, and falsehood, more 
powerful than the practice of administering oaths in a court 
of justice."! 

Upon this subject the legislator plays a desperate game 
against the morality of a people. He wishes to make them 
speak the truth when they undertake an office or deliver evi- 
dence. Even supposing him to succeed, what is the cost? 
That of diminishing the motives to veracity in all the affairs 
of life. A man may not be called upon to take an oath above 
two or three times in his life, but he is called upon to speak 
the truth every day. 

A few, but a few serious, words remain. The investiga- 
tions of this chapter are not matters to employ speculation but 
to influence our practice. If it be indeed true that Jesus 
Christ has imperatively forbidden us to employ an oath, a 
duty, an imperative duty is imposed upon us. It is worse 
than merely vain to hear his laws unless we obey them. 
Of him therefore who is assured of the prohibition, it 
is indispensably required that he should refuse an oath. 
There is no other means of maintaining our allegiance to 

* Gurney : Observations, &c. c. X. t Godwin : v. 2. p. 634. 



CHAP. VII.] 



OATHS. 



195 



God. Our pretensions to Christianity are at stake : for he 
who, knowing the Christian law, will not conform to it, is cer- 
tainly not a Christian. How then does it happen, that al- 
though persons frequently acknowledge they think oaths are 
forbidden, so few, when they are called upon to swear, de- 
cline to do it ? Alas, this offers one evidence amongst the 
many, of the want of uncompromising moral principles in the 
world — of such principles as it has been the endeavour of 
these pages to enforce — of such principles as would prompt 
us and enable us to sacrifice every thing to Christian fidelity. 
By what means do the persons of whom we speak suppose 
that the will of God respecting oaths is to be effected ? To 
whose practice do they look for an exemplification of the 
Christian standard ? Do they await some miracle by which 
the whole world shall be convinced, and oaths shall be abol- 
ished without the agency of man ? Such are not the means 
by which it is the pleasure of the Universal Lord to act. He 
effects his moral purposes by the instrumentality of faithful 
men. Where are these faithful men ? — But let it be : if those 
who are called to this fidelity refuse, theirs will be the dis- 
honour and the offence. But the work will eventually be 
done. Other and better men will assuredly arise to acquire 
the Christian honour and to receive the Christian reward. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE MORAL CHARACTER, OBLIGATIONS, AND EFFECTS 
OF PARTICULAR OATHS. 



SUBSCRIPTION TO ARTICLES OF RELIGION. 

Oath of Allegiance — Oath in Evidence — Perjury — Military oath — Oath 
against Bribery at Elections — Oath against simony — University oaths 
— Subscription to articles of religion — Meaning of the 39 articles literal 
— Refusal to subscribe. 

In reading the paragraphs which follow respecting several 
of the specific oaths which are imposed in this country, the 
reader should remember, that the evils with which they are 
attended would almost equally attend affirmations in similar 
circumstances. Our object therefore is less to illustrate their 
nature as oaths, than as improper and vicious engagements. 



196 



MORAL CHARACTER, OBLIGATIONS, AND [ESSAY II. 



With respect to the interpretation of a particular oath, it is 
obviously to be determined by the same rule as that of pro- 
mises. A man must fulfil his oath in that sense in which he 
knows the imposer designs and expects him to fulfil it. And 
he must endeavour to ascertain what the imposer's expectation 
is. To take an oath in voluntary ignorance of the obligations 
which it is intended to impose, and to excuse ourselves for 
disregarding them because we do not know what they are, 
cannot surely be right. Yet it is often difficult, sometimes 
impossible, to discover what an oath requires. The absence 
of precision in the meaning of terms, the alteration of gen- 
eral usages whilst the forms of oaths remain the same, and the 
original want of explicitness of the forms themselves, throw 
sometimes insuperable obstacles in the way of discovering, 
when a man takes an oath, what it is that he binds himself to 
do. This is manifestly a great evil : and it is chargeable 
primarily upon the custom of exacting oaths at all. It is in 
general a very difficult thing to frame an unobjectionable oath 
— an oath which shall neither be so lax as to become nugatory 
by easiness of evasion and uncertainty of meaning, nor so 
rigid as to demand in words more than the imposer wishes to 
exact, and thus to ensnare the consciences of those who take 
it. The same objections would apply to forms of affirma- 
tion. The only effectual remedy is to diminish, or, if it were 
possible, to abolish the custom of requiring men to promise 
beforehand to pursue a certain course of action. How is non- 
fulfilment of these engagements punished ? By fine or imprison- 
ment, or some other mode of penalty 1 Let the penalty, let 
the sanction remain, without the promise or the oath. A man 
swears allegiance to a prince : if he becomes a traitor he is 
punished, not for the breach of his oath but for his treason. 
Can you not punish his treason without the oath ? A man 
swears he has not received a bribe at an election. If he 
does receive one you send him to prison. You could as 
easily send him thither if he had not sworn. You reply — 
But, by imposing the oath we bind the swearer's conscience. 
Alas ! we have seen and we shall presently again see, that 
this plan of binding men is of little effect. There is one 
kind of affirmation that appears to involve absurdity. I mean 
that by which a man affirms that he will speak the truth. Of 
what use is the affirmation 1 The affirmant is not bound to ve- 
racity more than he w T as before he made it. It is no greater 
lie to speak falsely after an affirmation than before. 

Oath of Allegiance. — " I do sincerely promise and 
swear that I will be faithful, and bear true allegiance, to his 



CHAP. VIII.] EFFECTS OF PARTICULAR OATHS. 



197 



Majesty king George." — On the propriety of exacting these 
political oafhs, we shall offer some observations in the next 
Essay.* At present we ask, What does the oath of alle- 
giance mean ? Set a hundred men each to write an exact ac- 
count of what the party here promises to do, and I will un- 
dertake to affirm that not one in the hundred will agree with 
any other individual. " I will be faithful ?" What is meant 
by being faithful ? What is the extent of the obligation, and 
what are its limits ? " I will bear true allegiance :" What 
does allegiance mean 1 Is it synonymous with fidelity ? Or 
does it embrace a wider extent of obligation, or a narrower 1 
And if either, how is the extent ascertained ? — The oath was, 
I believe, made purposely indefinite : the old oath of allegiance 
was more discriminative. But no form can discriminate the 
duty of a citizen to his rulers — unless you make it consist of 
a political treatise ; and no man can write a treatise with de- 
finitions to which all would subscribe. The truth is, that no 
one knows what the oath of allegiance requires. Paley at- 
tempts, in six separate articles, to define its meaning : one of 
which definitions is, that " the oath excludes . all design, at 
the time, of attempting to depose the reigning prince. "f At 
the time ! Why the oath is couched in the future tense. Its 
express purpose is to obtain a security for future conduct. 
The swearer declares, not what he then designs, but what, in 
time to come, he will do. — Another definition is, " it permits 
resistance to the king when his ill behaviour or imbecility is 
such as to make resistance beneficial to the community. "J 
But how or in what manner, " fidelity and true allegiance" 
means " resistance," casuistry only can tell. We may rest 
assured, that after all attempts at explanation, the meaning of 
the oath will be, at the least, as doubtful as before. Nor is 
there any remedy. The fault is not in the form, for no 
form can be good : but in the imposition of any oath of alle- 
giance. The only means of avoiding the evil is by abolish- 
ing the oath. Besides, what do oaths of allegiance avail in 
those periods of disturbance in which princes are commonly 
displaced ? What revolution has been prevented by oaths of 
allegiance ? 

Yet if the oath does no good, it does harm. It is always 
doing harm to exact promises from men, who cannot know 
beforehand whether they will fulfil them. And as to the am- 
biguity, it is always doing harm to require men to stake their 
salvation upon doing — they know not what. 

Oath in Evidence. — "The truth, the whole truth, and 
* Essay III., ch. 5. t Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 3, p. 1, c. 18. X Ibid 

17* 



198 MORAL CHARACTER, OBLIGATIONS, AND [ESSAY 

nothing but the truth, touching the matter in question." 
the witness to understand by this that if he truly answers all 
questions that are put to him, he conforms to the requisitions 
of the oath ? If he is, the terms of the oath are very excep- 
tionable ; for many a witness may give true answers to a 
counsel and yet not tell " the whole truth." Or does the oath 
bind him to give an exact narrative of every particular con- 
nected with the matter in question whether asked or not ? If 
it does, multitudes commit perjury. How then shall a wit- 
ness act 1 Shall he commit perjury by withholding all inform- 
ation but that which is asked ? Or shall he be ridiculed and 
perhaps silenced in court for attempting to narrate all that he 
has sworn to disclose ? Here again the morality of the peo- 
ple is injuriously affected. To take an oath to do a certain 
prescribed act, and then to do only just that which custom hap- 
pens to prescribe, is to ensnare the conscience and practically 
to diminish the sanctions of veracity. The evil may be 
avoided either by disusing all previous promises to speak the 
truth, or to adapt the terms of the promise (if that can be 
done) to the duties which the law or which custom expects. 
" You shall true answer make to all such questions as shall 
be asked of you," is the form when a person is sworn upon a 
voir dire ; and if this is all that the law expects when he is 
giving evidence, why not use the same form ? If however, 
in deference to the reasonings against the use of any oaths, 
the oath in evidence were abolished, no difficulty could re- 
main: for to promise in any form to speak the truth, is, as we 
have seen, absurd. 

Whilst the oath in evidence continues to be imposed, it is 
not an easy task to determine in what sense the witness 
should understand it. If you decide by the meaning of the 
legislature which imposed the oath, it appears manifest that 
he should tell all he knows, whether asked or not. But what, 
it may be asked, is the meaning of a law, but that which the 
authorized expounders of the law determine ? And if they 
habitually admit an interpretation at variance with the terms 
of the oath, is not their sanction an authoritative explanation 
of the legislature's meaning ? These are questions which I 
pretend not with confidence to determine. The mischiefs 
which result from the uncertainty, are to be charged upon the 
legislatures which do not remove the evil. I would, however, 
suggest that the meaning of a form in such cases is to be 
sought, not so much in the meaning of the original imposers, 
as in that of those who now sanction the form by .permitting 
it to exist. This doubtless opens wide the door to extreme 



CHAP. VIII.] EFFECTS OF PARTICULAR OATHS, 



199 



licentiousness of interpretation. Nor can that door be closed. 
There is no other remedial measure than an alteration of the 
forms or an abolition of the oath. 

Military Oath. — " I swear to obey the orders of the offi- 
cers who are set over me : So help me God." And suppose 
an officer orders him to do something which morality forbids 
— his oath then stands thus : " I swear to obey man rather 
than God." The profaneness is shocking. Will any exten- 
uation be offered, and will it be said that the military man 
only swears to obey the virtuous orders of his superior 1 We 
deny the fact : the oath neither means nor is intended to mean 
any such thing. It may indeed by possibility happen that an 
officer may order his inferior to do a thing which a court- 
martial would not punish him for refusing to do. But if the 
law intends to allow such exceptions, what excuse is there 
for making the terms of the oath absolute ? Is it not teaching 
military men to swear they care not what, thus to make the 
terms of the oath one thing and its meaning another ? But 
the real truth is, that neither the law nor courts-martial allow 
any such limitations in the meaning of the oath as will bring 
it within the limits of morality, or of even a decent reverence to 
Him who commands morality to man. They do not intend to 
allow the Moral Law to be the primary rule to the soldier. 
They intend the contrary : and the soldier does actually swear 
that, if he is ordered so to do, he will violate the law of God. 
Of this impiety what is the use ? Does any one imagine 
that a soldier obeys his superiors because he has sworn to 
obey them? It were ridiculous. When courts-martial in- 
flict a punishment, they inflict it not for perjury but for diso- 
bedience. 

I would devote two or three sentences to the observation 
that the military oath is sui generis. So far at least as my 
information extends, no other oath is imposed which promises 
unconditional obedience to other men ; no other oath exists by 
which a man binds himself to violate the laws of God. Why 
does the military oath thus stand alone, the explicit contemner 
of the obligations of morality ? — Because it belongs to a cus- 
tom which itself contemns morality. Because it belongs to a 
custom which " repeals all the principles of virtue." Because 
it belongs to War. — There is a lesson couched in this, which 
he who has ears to hear will find to be pregnant with instruction. 

Oath against Bribery at Elections. — "I do swear I 
have not received, or had, by myself or any person whatso- 
ever in trust for me, or for my use and benefit, directly or in- 
directly, any sum or sums of money ; office, place, or em- 



200 



MORAL CHARACTER, OBLIGATIONS, AND [ESSAY II. 



ployment ; gift or reward ; or any promise or security for any 
money, office, employment, or gift, in order to give my vote 
at this election." This is an attempt to secure incorruptness 
by extreme accuracy in framing the oath. With what suc- 
cess, public experience tells. No bribery oath will prevent 
bribery. It wants efficient sanctions — punishment by the law 
or reprobation by the public. A man who possesses a vote 
in a close borough, and whose neighbours and their fathers 
have habitually pocketed a bribe at every election, is very 
little under the influence of public opinion. That public with 
which he is connected, does not reprobate the act, and he 
learns to imagine it is of little moral turpitude. As to legal 
penalties, they are too unfrequently inflicted or too difficult of 
infliction to be of much avail. Why then is this nursery of 
perjury continued ? Which action should we most deprecate, 
that of the voter who perjures himself for a ten-pound note, 
or that of the legislator who so tempts him to perjury by im- 
posing an oath which he knows will be violated ? If bribery 
be wrong, punish it ; but it is utterly indefensible to exact 
oaths which every body knows will be broken. Not indeed 
that any thing in the present state of the representation will 
prevent bribery. We may multiply oaths and denounce pen- 
alties without end, yet bribery will still prevail. But though 
bribery be inseparable from the system, perjury is not. We 
should abolish one of the evils if we do not or cannot abolish 
both. 

As to those endless contrivances by which electors avoid 
the arm of the law, and hope to avoid the guilt of perjury, 
they are, as it respects guilt, all and always vain. The in- 
tention of the Legislature was to prevent bribery, and he who 
is bribed, violates his oath whether he violates its literal terms 
or not. The shopkeeper who sells a yard of cloth to a can- 
didate for twenty pounds, is just as truly bribed, and he just 
as truly commits a perjury, as if the candidate had said, I 
give you this twenty-pound note to tempt you to vote for me. 
These men may evade legal penalties ; there is a power which 
they cannot evade. 

Oath against Simony. — The substance of the oath is, "I 
do swear that I have made no simonical payment for obtain- 
ing this ecclesiastical place : So help me God through Jesus 
Christ !" The patronage of livings, that is, the legal right to 
give a man the ecclesiastical income of a parish, may, like 
other property, be bought and sold. But though a person 
may legally sell the power of giving the income, he may not 
sell the income itself; the reason it may be presumed being, 



CHAP. VIII.] EFFECTS OF PARTICULAR OATHS. 



20] 



that a person who can only give the income, will be more 
likely to bestow it upon such a clergyman as deserves it, than 
if he sold it to the highest bidder. It may however be ob- 
served in passing, that the security for the judicious presen- 
tation of church preferment is extremely imperfect ; for the 
law, whilst it tries to take care that preferment shall be pro- 
perly bestowed, takes no care that the power of bestowing it 
shall be entrusted to proper hands. The least virtuous man 
or woman in a district may possess this power ; and it were 
vain to expect that they will be very solicitous to assign care- 
ful shepherds to the Christian flocks. 

To prevent the income from being bought and sold, the law 
requires the acceptor of a living to swear that he has made 
no simomacal payment for it. What then is simony 1 To 
answer this question the clergyman must have recourse to the 
definitions of the law. Simony is of various kinds, and the 
clergyman who is under strong temptation to make some con- 
tract with, or payment to the patron, is manifestly in danger 
of making them in the fearing, doubting, hope, that they are 
not simoniacal. And so he makes the arrangement, hardly 
knowing whether he has committed simony and perjury or 
not. This evil is seen and acknowledged : " The oath," says 
a dignitary of the church, * lays a snare for the integrity of 
the clergy, and I do not perceive that the requiring of it, in 
cases of private patronage, produces any good effect sufficient 
to compensate for this danger." 

L xiversity Oaths. — The various statutes of colleges, of 
which every member is obliged to promise the observance on 
oath, are become wholly or partly obsolete ; some are need- 
less and absurd, some illegal, and to some, perhaps, it is im- 
possible to conform. Yet the oath to perforin them is con- 
stantly taken. A man swears that he will speak, within the 
college, no language but Latin ; and he speaks English in it 
every day. He swears he will employ so many hours out of 
every twenty-four in disputations ; and does not dispute for 
days or weeks together. What remains, then, for those who 
take these oaths to do ? To show that this is not perjury. 
Here is the field for casuistry ; here is the field in which in- 
genuity may exhibit its adroitness ! in which sophistry may 
delight to range ! in which Duns Scotus, if he were again in 
the world, might rejoice to be a combatant ! — And what do 
Ingenuity, and Casuistry, and Sophistry do ? Oh ! they dis- 
cover consolatory truths ; they discover that if the act which 
you promise to perform is unlawful, you may swear to perform 
it with an easy conscience ; they discover that there is no 



202 



MORAL CHARACTER, OBLIGATIONS, AND [ESSAY II. 



harm in swearing to jump from Dover*to Calais, because it is 
" impracticable ;" they discover that it is quite proper to swear 
to do a foolish thing because it would be " manifestly inconve- 
nient" and " prejudicial" to do it. — In a word, they discover 
so many agreeable things that if the book of Cervantes were 
appended to the oath, they might swear to imitate all the deeds 
of his hero, and yet remain quietly and innocently in a college 
all their lives. 

That nothing can be said in extenuation of those who take 
these oaths, cannot be affirmed ; yet that the taking them 
is wrong, every man who simply consults his own heart will 
know. Even if they were wrong upon no other ground they 
would be so upon this, that if men were conscientious enough 
to refuse to take them, the " necessity" for taking them would 
soon be withdrawn. No man questions that these oaths are a 
scandal to religion and to religious men ; no man questions 
that their tendency is to make the public think lightly of the 
obligation of an oath. They ought therefore to be abolished. 
It is imperative upon the legislature to abolish them, and it is 
imperative upon the individual, by refusing to take them, to 
evince to the legislature the necessity for its interference. 
Nothing is wanted but that private Christians should maintain 
Christian fidelity. If they did do this, and refused to take 
these oaths, the legislature would presently do its duty. It 
needs not to be feared that it would suffer the doors of the 
colleges to be locked up, because students were too consci- 
entious to swear falsely. Thus, although the obligation upon 
the legislature is manifest, it possesses some semblance of an 
excuse for refraining from reform, since those who are imme- 
diately aggrieved, and who are the immediate agents of the of- 
fence are so little concerned, that they do not address even a 
petition for interference. That some good men feel aggrieved 
is scarcely to be doubted : let these remember their obligations : 
let them remember, that compliance entails upon posterity the 
evil and the offence, and sets, for the integrity of successors, 
a perpetual snare. 

It is an unhappy reflection that men endeavour rather to pacify 
the misgiving voice of conscience under a continuance of the 
evil, than exert themselves to remove it. Unschooled persons 
will always think that the usage is wrong. In truth, even after 
the licentious interpretations of the oath have been resortedto — • 
after it has been shown what he who takes them does not pro- 
mise, what imaginable security is there that he will perform 
that which he does promise — that he will even know what he 
promises ? None. Being himself the interpreter of the oath, 



CHAP. VIII.] EFFECTS OF PARTICULAR OATHS. 



203 



and having resolved that the oath does not mean what it says, 
he is at liberty to think that it means any thing ; or, which I 
suppose is the practical opinion, that it means nothing. If 
we would remove the evil we must abolish the oath. 

SUBSCRIPTION TO ARTICLES OF RELIGION. 

Bishop Clayton said, " I do not only doubt whether the 
compilers of the Articles, but even whether any two thinking 
men, ever agreed exactly in their opinion not only with re- 
gard to all the Articles, but even with regard to any one of 
them."* Such is the character of that series of propositions 
in which a man is required to declare his belief before he can 
become a minister in a Christian community. The event 
may easily be foreseen ; some will refuse to subscribe ; some 
will subscribe though it violates their consciences ; some will 
subscribe regardless whether it be right or wrong ; and some 
of course will be found to justify subscription. 

Of those who on moral grounds refuse to subscribe to that 
which they do not believe, it may be presumed that they are 
conscientious men — men who prefer sacrificing their interests 
to their duties. These are the men whom every Christian 
church should especially desire to retain in its communion ; 
and these are precisely the men whom the Articles exclude 
from the English church. 

As it respects those who perceive the impropriety of sub- 
scription and yet subscribe, whose consciences are wronged 
by the very act which introduces them into the church — the 
evil is manifest and great. Chillingworth declared to Shelden 
that " if he subscribed, he subscribed his own damnation," 
yet not long afterwards Chillingworth was induced to sub- 
scribe. Unhappy, that they who are about to preach virtue 
to others, should be initiated by a violation of the Moral Law! 

With respect to those who subscribe heedlessly, and with- 
out regard to their belief or disbelief of the Articles — of what 
use is subscription ? It is designed to operate as a test ; but 
what test is it to him who would set his name to the Articles 
if they were exactly the contrary of what they are ? If con- 
scientiousness keeps some men out of the church, the want of 
conscientiousness lets others in. The contrivance is admirably 
adapted to an end ; but to what end ? To the separation of the 
more virtuous from the less, and to the admission of the latter. 

A reader who was a novice in these affairs would ask, in 
wonder, For what purpose is subscription exacted ? If the 
* Confessional, 3d Edit. p. 246 



204 



MORAL CHARACTER, OBLIGATIONS, AND [ESSAY II. 



Articles are so objectionable, and if subscription is productive 
of so much evil, why are not the Articles revised, or why is 
subscription required at all? These are reasonable questions. 
They involve, however, political considerations ; and in the 
Political Essay we hope to give such an enquirer satisfaction 
respecting them. 

And with respect to the justifications that are offered of 
subscribing to doctrines which are not believed, it is manifest, 
that they must set out with the assumption that the words of 
the Articles mean nothing — that we are not to seek for their 
meaning in their terms, but in some other quarter. It is 
hardly necessary to remark, that when this assumption is 
made, the enquirer is launched upon a boundless ocean, and 
though he has to make his way to a port, possesses neither 
compass nor helm, and can see neither sun nor star. Who 
can assign any limit to license of interpretation, when it is 
once agreed that the words themselves mean nothing ? The 
world is all before us, and we have to seek a place of rest 
from pyrrhonism wherever we can find it. We are told to go 
back to Queen Elizabeth's days, and to find out, if we can, 
what the legislature who framed the Articles meant : always 
premising that we are not to judge of what they meant by 
what they said. How is it discovered that they did not mean 
what they said ? By a process of most convincing argumenta- 
tion ; which argumentation consists in this, " It is difficult to 
conceive how" they could have meant it!* These are agree- 
able and convenient solutions ; but they are not true. 

" They who contend that nothing less can justify subscrip- 
tion to the Thirty-nine Articles, than the actual belief of each 
and every separate proposition contained in them, must sup- 
pose that the legislature expected the consent of ten thousand 
men and that in perpetual succession, not to one contro- 
verted proposition but to many hundreds. It is difficult to 
conceive how this could be expected by any who observed the 
incurable diversity of human opinion upon all subjects short 
of demonstration. "f Now it appears that the Legislature of 
Elizabeth actually did require uniformity of opinion upon 
these controverted points. Such has been the decision of 
the Judges. " One Smyth subscribed to the said Thirty-nine 
Articles of religion with this addition — so far forth as the 
same were agreeable to the word of God ; — and it was resolved 
by Wray, Chief- Justice in the King's Bench, and all the 
Judges of England, that this subscription was not according 
to the statute of 13th Eliz. Because the statute required an 
* Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 3. p. 1. c. 22. t Id. 



II 

CHAP. VIII.] EFFECTS OF PARTICULAR OATHS. 205 

absolute subscription, and this subscription made it condi- 
tional : and that this act was made for avoiding diversity of 
opinions, tyc. ; and by this addition, the party might, by his 
own private opinion, take some of them to be against the Word 
of God, and by this means, diversity"' of opinions should not be 
avoided, which was the scope of the statute ; and the very act 
made, touching subscription, of none effect."* 

This overthrows the convenient explanations of modern 
times. It is agreed by those who offer these explanations, 
that the meaning of Elizabeth's legislature is that by which 
they are bound. That meaning then is declared by all the 
Judges of England to be, that subscribers should believe the 
propositions of the Articles. The modern explanations allow 
private opinion the liberty of thinking some of them to be 
" against the Word of God." This was precisely the liberty 
which the legislature intended to preclude. The modem 
explanations affirm the Articles to be conditional, and in fact, 
that they impose only a few general obligations ; but uncon- 
ditional subscription was the very thing which the legislature 
required. If a person should now express the condition 
which Smyth, as reported by Coke, expressed, and should 
say, I believe the ilrticles so far as they are accordant with 
Christian Truth — it appears that his subscription would not 
be accepted ; and yet this is what is done by perhaps every 
clergyman in England — with this difference only, that the 
reservation is secretly made and not frankly expressed. So 
that in reality, and according to the principles laid down by 
the apologists of subscription,! almost every subscriber sub- 
scribes falsely. 

But what, it will be asked, is to be done ? Refuse to sub- 
scribe. There is no other means of maintaining your purity, 
and perhaps no other means of procuring an abolition of the 
Articles. At least this means would be effectual. We may 
be sure that the legislature would revise or abolish them if it 
was found that no one Would subscribe. They would not 
leave the pulpits empty in compliment to a barbarous relic 
of the days of Elizabeth. Perhaps it will be said, that al- 
though men of virtue refused -to subscribe, the pulpits would 

* Coke : Instit. 4 cap. 74. p. 324. 

t These principles are, that the meaning of a promise or an oath is to 
be determined by the meaning of those who impose it. This as a general 
rule is true ; but I repeat the doubt whether, in the case of antiquated 
forms a proper standard of their meaning is not to ke sought in the inten- 
tion of the legislatures which novv perpetuate those forms. This doubt, 
however, in whatever way it preponderates, will not afford a justification 
of subscribing to forms of which the terms are notoriously disregarded- 

18 



206 



IMMORAL AGENCT. 



[ESSAY II. 



still be filled with unprincipled men. The effect would speed- 
ily be the same : the legislature would not continue to im- 
pose subscription for the sake of excluding from the ministry 
all but bad men. Those who subscribe, therefore, bind the 
burden upon their own shoulders and upon the shoulders of 
posterity. The offence is great : the scandal to religion is 
great : and even if refusal to subscribe would not remove the 
evil, the question for the individual is not what may be the 
consequence of doing his duty, but what his duty is. We 
want a little more Christian fidelity: a little more of that 
spirit which made our forefathers prefer the stake to tamper- 
ing with their consciences. 



CHAPTER IX. 

IMMORAL AGENCY. 

Publication and circulation of books — Seneca — Circulating Libraries— 
Public-houses — Prosecutions — Political affairs. 

A great portion of the moral evil in the world, is the 
result not so much of the intensity of individual wickedness, 
as of a general incompleteness in the practical virtue of all 
classes of men. If it were possible to take away misconduct 
from one half of the community and to add its amount to the 
remainder, it is probable that the moral character of our species 
would be soon benefited by the change. Now, the ill dispo- 
sitions of the bad are powerfully encouraged by the want of 
upright examples in those who are better. A man may de- 
viate considerably from rectitude, and still be as good as his 
neighbours. From such a man, the motive to excellence 
which the constant presence of virtuous example supplies, is 
taken away. So that there is reason to believe, that if the 
bad were to become worse, and the reputable to become pro- 
portionably better, the average virtue of the world would 
speedily be increased. 

One of the modes by which the efficacy of example in re- 
putable persons is miserably diminished, is by what we have 
called Immoral Agency — by their being willing to encourage, 
at second hand, evils which they would not commit as princi- 
pals. Linked together as men are in society, it is frequently 



CHAP. IX.] 



IMMORAL AGENCY. 



207 



difficult to perform an unwarrantable action without some sort 
of co-operation from creditable men. This co-operation is 
not often, except in flagrant cases, refused ; and thus not only 
is the commission of such actions facilitated, but a general 
relaxation is induced in the practical estimates which men 
form of the standard of rectitude. 

Since, then, so much evil attends this agency in unwarrant- 
able conduct, it manifestly becomes a good man to look 
around upon the nature of his intercourse with others, and to 
consider whether he is not virtually promoting evils which 
his judgment deprecates, or reducing the standard of moral 
judgment in the world. The reader would have no difficulty 
in perceiving that, if a strenuous opponent of the slave trade 
should establish a manufactory of manacles, and thumbscrews, 
and iron collars for the slave merchants, he would be grossly 
inconsistent with himself. The reader would perceive too, 
that his labours in the cause of the abolition would be almost 
nullified by the viciousness of his example, and that he would 
generally discredit pretensions to philanthropy. Now, that 
which we desire the reader to do is, to apply the principles 
which this illustration exhibits to other and less flagrant 
cases. Other cases of co-operation with evil may be less 
flagrant than this ; but they are not, on that account, innocent. 
I have read, in the life of a man of great purity of character, 
that he refused to draw up a will or some such document 
because it contained a transfer of some slaves. He thought 
that slavery was absolutely wrong ; and therefore would not, 
even by the remotest implication, sanction the system by his 
example.* I think he exercised a sound Christian judgment ; 
and if all who prepare such documents acted upon the same 
principles, I know not whether they would not so influence 
public opinion as greatly to hasten the abolition of slavery 
itself. Yet where is the man who would refuse to do this, 
or to do things even less defensible than this ? 

Publication and Circulation of Books. — It is a very 
common thing to hear of the evils of pernicious reading, of 
how it enervates the mind, or how it depraves the principles. 
The complaints are doubtless just. These books could not 

* One of the publications of this excellent man contains a paragraph 
much to our present purpose: " In all our concerns, it is necessary that 
nothing we do may carry the appearance of approbation of the works of 
wickedness, make the unrighteous more at ease in unrighteousness, or oc- 
casion the injuries committed against the oppressed to be more lightly 
looked over." — Considerations on the True Harmony of Mankind, c 3, by 
John Woolman. 



208 



iMMORAL AGENCY. 



[essay n. 



be read, and these evils would be spared the world, if one did 
not write, and another did not print, and another did not sell, 
and another did not circulate them. Are those then, without 
whose agency the mischief could not ensue, to be held inno- 
cent in affording this agency ? Yet, loudly as we complain of 
the evil, and carefully as we warn our children to avoid it, 
how seldom do we hear public reprobation of the writers ! 
As to printers, and booksellers, and library keepers, we 
scarcely hear their offences mentioned at all. We speak not 
of those abandoned publications which all respectable men 
condemn, but of those which, pernicious as they are confessed 
to be, furnish reading-rooms and libraries, and are habitually 
sold in almost every bookseller's shop. Seneca says, " He 
that lends a man money to carry him to a bawdy-house, or 
a weapon for his revenge, makes himself a partner of his 
crime." He, too, who writes or sells a book which will, in 
all probability, injure the reader, is accessory to the mischief 
which may be done ; with this aggravation, when compared 
with the examples of Seneca, that whilst the money would 
probably do mischief but to one or two persons, the book may 
injure a hundred or a thousand. Of the writers of injurious 
books, we need say no more. If the inferior agents are cen- 
surable, the primary agent must be more censurable. A prin- 
ter or a bookseller should, however, reflect, that to be not so 
bad as another, is a very different thing from being innocent. 
When we see that the owner of a press will print any work 
that is offered to him, with no other concern "about its ten- 
dency than whether it will subject him to penalties from the 
law, we surely must perceive that he exercises but a very 
imperfect virtue. Is it obligatory upon us not to promote ill 
principles in other men 1 He does not fulfil the obligation. 
Is it obligatory upon us to promote rectitude by unimpeachable 
example ? He does not exhibit that example. If it were right 
for my neighbour to furnish me with the means of moral 
injury, it would not be wrong for me to accept and to employ 
them. 

I stand in a bookseller's shop, and observe his customers 
successively coming in. One orders a lexicon, and one a 
work of scurrilous infidelity ; one Captain Cook's Voyages, 
and one a new licentious romance. If the bookseller takes 
and executes all these orders with the same willingness, I 
cannot but perceive that there is an inconsistency, an incom- 
pleteness, in his moral principles of action. Perhaps this 
person is so conscious of the mischievous effects of such 
books, that he would not allow them in the hands of his chil- 



CHAP. IX.] 



IMMORAL ACfENCY. 



209 



dren, nor suffer them to be seen on his parlour table. But if 
he thus knows the evils which they inflict, can it be right for 
him to be the agent in diffusing them 1 Such a person does 
not exhibit that consistency, that completeness of virtuous 
conduct, without which the Christian character cannot be 
fully exhibited. Step into the shop of this bookseller's neigh- 
bour, a druggist, and there, if a person asks for some arsenic, 
the tradesman begins to be anxious. He considers whether 
it is probable the buyer wants it for a proper purpose. If he 
does sell it, he cautions the buyer to keep it where others 
cannot have access to it ; and, before he delivers the packet, 
legibly inscribes upon it Poison. One of these men sells 
poison to the body, and the other poison to the mind. If the 
anxiety and caution of the druggist is right, the indifference 
of the bookseller must be wrong. Add to which, that the 
druggist would not sell arsenic at all if it were not sometimes 
useful ; but to what readers can a vicious book be useful ? 

Suppose for a moment that no printer would commit such 
a book to his press, and that no bookseller would sell it, the 
consequence would be, that nine-tenths of these manuscripts 
would be thrown into the fire, or rather, that they would 
never have been written. The inference is obvious ; and 
surely it is not needful again to enforce the consideration, 
that although your refusal might not prevent vicious books 
from being published, you are not therefore exempted from 
the obligation to refuse. A man must do his duty whether 
the effects of his fidelity be such as he would desire or not. 
Such purity of conduct might, no doubt, circumscribe a man's 
business^ and so does purity of conduct in some other profes- 
sions ; but if this be a sufficient excuse for contributing to 
demoralize the world, if profit be a justification of a departure 
from rectitude, it will be easy to defend the business of a 
pickpocket. 

I know that the principles of conduct which these para- 
graphs recommend, lead to grave practical consequences : I 
know that they lead to the conclusion that the business of a 
printer or bookseller, as it is ordinarily conducted, is not con- 
sistent with Christian uprightness. A man may carry on a 
business in select works ; and this, by some conscientious 
persons, is really done. In the present state of the press, the 
difficulty of obtaining a considerable business as a bookseller 
without circulating injurious works may frequently be great, 
and it is in consequence of this difficulty that we see so few 
booksellers amongst the Quakers. The few who do conduct 
the business generally reside in large towns, where the de- 

18* 



210 



IMMORAL AGENCY. 



[essay n. 



mand for all books is so great that a person can procure a 
competent income though he excludes the bad. 

He who is more studious to justify his conduct than to act 
aright may say, that if a person may sell no book that can in- 
jure another, he can scarcely sell any book. The answer is, 
that although there must be some difficulty in discrimination, 
though a bookseller cannot always inform himself what the 
precise tendency of a book is — yet there can be no difficulty 
in judging respecting numberless books, that their tendency 
is bad. If we cannot define the precise distinction between 
the good and the evil, we can, nevertheless, perceive the evil 
when it has attained to a certain extent. He who cannot 
distinguish day from evening can distinguish it from night. 

The case of the proprietors of common circulating libraries 
is yet more palpable ; because the majority of the books which 
they contain inflict injury upon their readers. How it hap- 
pens that persons of respectable character, and who join with 
others in lamenting the frivolity, and worse than frivolity, of 
the age, nevertheless daily and hourly contribute to the mis- 
chief, without any apparent consciousness of inconsistency, it 
is difficult to explain. A person establishes, perhaps, one of 
these libraries for the first time in a country town. He sup- 
plies the younger and less busy part of its inhabitants with a 
source of moral injury from which hitherto they had been 
exempt. The girl who, till now, possessed sober views of 
life, he teaches to dream of the extravagances of love ; he 
familiarizes her ideas with intrigue and licentiousness ; de- 
stroys her disposition for rational pursuits ; and prepares her, 
it may be, for a victim of debauchery. These evils, or such 
as these, he inflicts, not upon one or two, but upon as many 
as he can ; and yet this person lays his head upon his pillow, 
as if, in all this, he was not offending against virtue or against 
man ! 

Inns. — When in passing the door of an inn I hear or see a 
company of intoxicated men in the " excess of riot," I cannot 
persuade myself that he who supplies the wine, and profits by 
the viciousness, is a moral man, In the private house of a 
person of respectability such a scene would be regarded as a 
scandal. It would lower his neighbour's estimate of the ex- 
cellence of his character. But does it then constitute a suf- 
ficient justification of allowing vice in our houses, that we get 
by it ? Does morality grant to a man an exemption from its 
obligations at the same time as he procures his license ? 
Drunkenness is immoral. If, therefore, when a person is on 
the eve of intoxication, the innkeeper supplies his demand for 



CHAP. IX.] 



IMMORAL AGENCY. 



211 



another bottle, he is accessory to the immorality. A man 
was lately found drowned in a stream. He had just left a 
public-house where he had been intoxicated during sixty 
hours ; and within this time the publican had supplied him 
(besides some spirits) with forty quarts of ale. Does any 
reader need to be convinced that this publican had acted crimi- 
nally ? His crime, however, was neither the greater nor the 
less because it had been the means of loss of life : no such 
accident might have happened ; but his guilt would have been 
the same. 

Probity is not the only virtue which it is good policy to 
practise. The, innkeeper, of whom it was known that he 
would not supply the means of excess, would probably gain 
by the resort of those who approved his integrity more than 
he would lose by the absence of those whose excesses that 
integrity kept away. An inn has been conducted upon such 
maxims. He who is disposed to make proof of the result, 
might fix upon an established quantity of the different liquors, 
which he would not exceed. If that quantity were determi- 
nately fixed, the lover of excess would have no ground of 
complaint when he had been supplied to its amount. Such 
honourable and manly conduct might have an extensive effect, 
until it influenced the practice even of the lower resorts of 
intemperance. A sort of ill fame might attach to the house 
in which a man could become drunk ; and the maxim might 
be established by experience, that it was necessary to the re- 
spectability, and therefore generally to the success, of a pub- 
lic-house, that none should be seen to reel out of its doors. 

Prosecutions. — It is upon principles of conduct similar 
to those which are here recommended, that many persons are 
reluctant, and some refuse, to prosecute offenders when they 
think the penalty of the law is unwarrantably severe. This 
motive operates in our own country to a great extent : and it 
ought to operate. I should not think it right to give evidence 
against a man who had robbed my house, if I knew that my 
evidence would occasion him to be hanged. Whether the 
reader may think similarly, is of no consequence to the prin- 
ciple. The principle is, that if you think the end vicious and 
wrong, you are guilty of " Immoral Agency" in contributing 
to effect that end. Unhappily, we are much less willing to 
act upon this principle when our agency produces only moral 
evil, than when it produces physical suffering. He that would 
not give evidence which would take a man's life, or even oc- 
casion him loss or pain, would, with little hesitation, be an 
agent of injuring his moral principles ; and yet, perhaps the 



IMMORAL AGENCY. 



[ESSAY II. 



evil of the latter case is incomparably greater than that of the 
former. 

Political Affairs. — The amount of Immoral Agency 
which is practised in these affairs, is very great. Look to 
any of the continental governments, or to any that have sub- 
sisted there, how few acts of misrule, of oppression, of injus- 
tice, and of crime, have been prevented by the want of agents 
of the iniquity ! I speak not of notoriously bad men : of 
these, bad governors can usually find enough : but I speak of 
men who pretend to respectability and virtue of character, 
and who are actually called respectable by the world. There 
is perhaps no class of affairs in which the agency of others is 
more indispensable to the accomplishment of a vicious act, 
than in the political. Very little — comparatively very little 
— of oppression and of the political vices of rulers should we 
see, if reputable men did not lend their agency. These evils 
could not be committed through the agency of merely bad 
men ; because the very fact that bad men only would abet 
them, would frequently preclude the possibility of their com- 
mission. It is not to be pretended that no public men possess 
or have possessed sufficient virtue to refuse to be the agents of 
a vicious government — but they are few. If they were numer- 
ous, especially if they were as numerous as they ought to be, 
history, even very modern history, would have had a far other 
record to frame than that which now devolves to her. Can it 
be needful to argue upon such things ? Can it be needful to 
prove that, neither the commands of ministers, nor M systems 
of policy," nor any other circumstance, exempts a public man 
from the obligations of the Moral Law ? Public men often 
act as if they thought that to be a public man was to be brought 
under the jurisdiction of a new and a relaxed morality. They 
often act as if they thought that not to be the prime mover in 
political misdeeds, was to be exempt from all moral responsi- 
bility for those deeds. A dagger, if it could think, would 
think it was not responsible for the assassination of which it 
was the agent. A public man may be a political dagger, but 
he cannot, like the dagger, be irresponsible. 

These illustrations of Immoral Agency and of the obligation 
to avoid it might be multiplied, if enough had not been offered 
to make our sentiments, and the reasons upon which they are 
founded, obvious to the reader. Undoubtedly, in 'the present 
state of society, it is no easy task, upon these subjects, to 
wash our hands in innocency. But if we cannot avoid all 
agency, direct or indirect, in evil things, we can avoid much : 



CHAP. X.] THE INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUALS, ETC. 



213 



and it will be sufficiently early to complain of the difficulty 
of complete purity, when we have dismissed from our conduct 
as much impurity as we can. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUALS UPON PUBLIC 
NOTIONS OF MORALITY. 

Public notions of morality — Errors of public opinion : their effects — 
Duelling — Scottish Bench — Glory — Military virtues — Military talent — 
Bravery — Courage — Patriotism not the soldier's motive — Military fame 
— Public opinion of unchastity : In women : In men — Power of char- 
acter — Character in Legal men — Fame — Faults of Great men — The 
Prefss — Newspapers — History : Its defects : Its power. 

That the influence of Public Opinion upon the practice of 
virtue is very great, needs no proof. Of this influence the 
reader has seen some remarkable illustrations in the discus- 
sion of the Efficacy of Oaths in binding to veracity.* There 
is, indeed, almost no action and no institution which Public 
Opinion does not affect. In moral affairs it makes men call 
one mode of human destruction murderous and one honour- 
able ; it makes the same action abominable in one individual 
and venial in another : in public institutions, from a village 
workhouse to the constitution of a state, ikis powerful alike 
for evil or for good. If it be misdirected, it will strengthen 
and perpetuate corruption and abuse ; if it be directed aright, 
it will eventually remove corruptions and correct abuses with 
a power which no power can withstand. 

In proportion to the greatness of its power is the necessity 
of rectifying Public Opinion itself. To contribute to its rec- 
titude is to exercise exalted philanthropy — to contribute to its 
incorrectness is to spread wickedness and misery in the world. 
The purpose of the present chapter is to remark upon some 
of those subjects on which the Public Opinion appears to be 
inaccurate, and upon the consequent obligation upon individ- 
uals not to perpetuate that inaccuracy and its attendant evils 
by their conduct or their language. Of the positive part of 
the obligation — that which respects the active correction of 
common opinions, little will be said. He who does not pro- 

* Essay 2, chap. 7. 



214 



INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUALS UPON ESSAY II. 



mote the evil can scarcely fail of promoting the good. A man 
often must deliver his sentiments respecting the principles 
and actions of others, and if he delivers them, so as not to en- 
courage what is wrong, he will practically encourage what is 
right. 

It might have been presumed of a people who assent to the 
authority of the Moral Law, that their notions of the merit or 
turpitude of actions would have been conformable with the 
doctrines which that law delivers. Far other is the fact. 
The estimates of the Moral Law and of public opinion are 
discordant to excess. Men have practised a sort of transpo- 
sition with the moral precepts, and have assigned to them ar- 
bitrary and capricious, and therefore new and mischievous, 
stations on the moral scale. The order both of the vices and 
the virtues is greatly deranged. 

Suppose with respect to vices, the highest degree of repro- 
bation in the Moral Law to be indicated by 20, and to descend 
by units, as the reprobation became less severe, and suppose, 
in the same manner, we put 20 for the highest offence ac- 
cording to popular opinion, and diminish the number as it ac- 
counts less of the offence, we should probably be presented 
with Isome such graduation as this : 

Moral Public 

Law. Opinion. 

Murder 20 20 

Human destruction under other ) , R ft 

names y 

Unchastity, if of Women 18 18 

Unchastity, if of Men 18 2 

Theft 17 17 

Fraud and other modes of dis- ) , _ . , 

honesty \ 17 6-4 or 1 

Lying 17 17 

Lying for particular purposes or ) j„ q ~ 

to particular classes of persons $ 

Resentment 16 6 and every inferior gradation. 

Profaneness 15 12 and every inferior gradation. 

We might make a similar statement of the virtues. This in- 
deed is inevitable in the case of those virtues which are the op- 
positesof some of these vices. Respecting others we maysay — 



Patriotism. 



Moral 


Public 


Law. 


Opinion. 


. 16 


3 and 


16 


10 


.. 14 


14 


. 1 


20 


. 2 


20 


.. 18 


4 



CHAP. X.] PUBLIC NOTIONS OF MORALITY. 



215 



How, it may reasonably be asked, do these strange incon- 
gruities arise ? First, men practise a sort of voluntary decep- 
tion on themselves ; they persuade themselves to think that 
an offence which they desire to commit, is not so vicious as 
the Moral Law indicates, or as others to which they have little 
temptation. They persuade themselves again, that a virtue 
which is easily practised, is of great worth, because they thus 
flatter themselves with complacent notions of their excellences 
at a cheap rate. Virtues which are difficult they, for the 
same reason, depreciate. This is the dictate of interest. It 
is manifestly good policy to think lightly of the value of a 
quality which we do not choose to be at the cost of possess- 
ing ; and who would willingly think there was much evil in 
a vice which he practised every day 1 — That which a man 
thus persuades himself to think a trivial vice or an unimpor- 
tant virtue, he of course speaks of as such amongst his neigh- 
bours. They perhaps are as much interested in propagating 
the delusion as he : they listen with willing ears, and cherish 
and proclaim the grateful falsehood. By these and by other 
means the public notions become influenced ; a long contin- 
uance of the general chicanery at length actually confounds 
the Public Opinion ; and when once an opinion has become 
a public opinion, there is no difficulty in accounting for the 
perpetuation of the fallacy. 

If sometimes the mind of an individual recurs to the purer 
standard, a multitude of obstacles present themselves to its 
practical adoption. He hopes that under the present circum- 
stances of society an exact obedience to the Moral Law is 
not required ; he tries to think that the notions of a kingdom 
or a continent cannot be so erroneous ; and at any rate trusts that 
as he deviates with millions, millions will hardly be held guilty 
at the bar of God. The misdirection of Public Opinion is an 
obstacle to the virtue even of good men. He who looks be- 
yond the notions of others, and founds his moral principles 
upon the Moral Law, yet feels that it is more difficult to con- 
form to that law when he is discountenanced by the general 
notions than if those notions supported and encouraged him. 
What then must the effect of such misdirection be upon those 
to whom acceptance in the world is the principal concern, 
and who, if others applaud or smile, seem to be indifferent 
whether their own hearts condemn them ? 

Now, with a participation in the evils which the misdirec- 
tion of public opinion occasions, every one is chargeable who 
speaks of moral actions according to a standard that varies 
from that which Christianity has exhibited. Here is the 



216 



INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUALS UPON [ESSAY II. 



cause of the evil, and here must be its remedy. " It is an 
important maxim in morals as well as in education to call 
things by their right names."* " To bestow good names on 
bad things, is to give them a passport in the world under a de- 
lusive disguise."! The soft names and plausible colours under 
which deceit, sensuality, and revenge are presented to us in 
common discourse, weaken by degrees our natural sense of 
the distinction between good and evil."^; Public notions of 
morality constitute a sort of line of demarcation, which is re- 
garded by most men in their practice as a boundary between 
right and wrong. He who contributes to fix this boundary in 
the wrong place, who places evil on the side of virtue, or 
goodness on the side of vice, offends more deeply against the 
morality and the welfare of the world, than multitudes who 
are punished by the arm of law. If moral offences are to be 
estimated by their consequences, few will be found so deep 
as that of habitually giving good names to bad things It is 
well indeed for the responsibility of individuals that their con- 
tribution to the aggregate mischief is commonly small. Yet 
every man should remember that it is by the contribution of 
individuals that the aggregate is formed ; and that it can only 
be by the deductions of individuals that it will be done 
away. 

Duelling. — If two boys who disagreed about a game of 
marbles or a penny tart, should therefore walk out by the 
river side, quietly take off their clothes, and when they had 
got into the water, each try to keep the other's head down 
until one of them was drowned, we should doubtless think 
that these two boys were mad. If, when the survivor re- 
turned to his schoolfellows, they patted him on the shoulder, 
told him he was a spirited fellow, and that, if he had not tried 
the feat in the water, they would never have played at mar- 
bles or any other game with him again, we should doubtless 
think that these boys were infected with a most revolting and 

* Rees's Encyclop. Art. Philos. Moral. 

t Knox's Essays, No. 34. \ Blair, Serm. 9. 

Dr. Carpenter insists upon similar truths upon somewhat different 
subjects. " If children hear us express as much approbation, and in the 
same terms, of the skill of a gentleman coach-driver, of the abilities of a 
philosophical lecturer, and of an individual who has just performed an 
elevated act of disinterested virtue, is it possible that they should not feel 
great confusion of ideas? If each is termed a noble fellow, and with 
the same emphasis and animation, how can the youthful understanding 
calculate with sufficient accuracy so as to appreciate the import of the ex- 
pression in the same way that we should do?" Principles of Education 
— Conscience. 



CHAP. X.] 



PUBLIC NOTIONS OF MORALITY. 



217 



disgusting depravity and ferociousness. We should instantly 
exert ourselves to correct their principles, and should feel as- 
sured that nothing could ever induce us to tolerate, much less 
to encourage such abandoned depravity. And yet we do 
both tolerate and encourage such depravity every day. 
Change the penny tart for some other trifle ; instead of boys 
put men, and instead of a river, a pistol — and we encourage 
it all. We virtually pat the survivor's shoulder, tell him he 
is a man of honour, and that, if he had not shot at his ac- 
quaintance, we would never have dined with him again. 
" Revolting and disgusting depravity" are at once excluded 
from our vocabulary. We substitute such phrases as " the 
course which a gentleman is obliged to pursue" — " it was ne- 
cessary to his honour" — H one could not have associated with 
him if he had not fought." — We are the schoolboys, grown 
up ; and by the absurdity, and more than absurdity of our 
phrases and actions, shooting or drowning (it matters not 
which) becomes the practice of the national school. 

It is not a trifling question that a man puts to himself when 
he asks, What is the amount of my contribution to this de- 
testable practice ? It is by individual contributions to the 
public notions respecting it that the practice is kept up. Men 
do not fire at one another because they are fond of risking 
their own lives or other men's, but because public notions are 
such as they are. Nor do I think any deduction can be more 
manifestly just, than that he who contributes to the misdirec- 
tion of these notions is responsible for a share of the evil and 
the guilt. When some offence has given probability to a 
duel, every man acts immorally who evinces any disposition 
to coolness with either party until he has resolved to fight ; 
and if eventually one of them falls, he is a party to his de- 
struction. Every word of unfriendliness, every look of in- 
difference, is positive guilt ; for it is such words and such 
looks that drive men to their pistols. It is the same after a 
victim has fallen. " I pity his family, but they have the con- 
solation of knowing that he vindicated his honour," is equiv- 
alent to urging another and another to fight. Every heed- 
less gossip who asks, " Have you heard of this affair of 
honour V and every reporter of news who relates it as a 
proper and necessary procedure, participates in the general 
crime. 

If they who hear of an intended meeting amongst their 
friends hasten to manifest that they will continue their inter- 
course with the parties though they do not fight — if none 
talks of vindicating honour by demanding satisfaction — if he 

19 



218 



INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUALS UFON [ESSAY II. 



who speaks and he who writes of this atrocity, speaks and 
writes as reason and morals dictate, duelling will soon dis- 
appear from the world. To contribute to the suppression of 
the custom is therefore easy, and let no man, and let no wo- 
man, who does notj as occasion offers, express reprobation of 
the custom, think that their hands are clear of blood. They 
especially are responsible for its continuance whose station or 
general character gives peculiar influence to their opinions in 
its favour. What then are we to think of the conduct of a 
British Judge who encourages it from the bench ? A short 
time ago a person was tried on the Perth circuit for murder, 
having killed another in a duel. The evidence of the fact 
was undisputed. Before the verdict was pronounced, the 
judge is said to have used these words in his address to the 
jury : " The character you have heard testified by so many 
respectable and intelligent gentlemen this day, is as high as is 
possible for man to receive, and I consider that throughout this 
affair the panel has acted up to it." So that it is laid down 
from the bench that the man who shoots another through 
the heart for striking him with an umbrella, acts up to the' 
highest possible character of man ! The prisoner, although 
every one knew he had killed the deceased, was acquitted, 
and the judge is reported to have addressed him thus : " You 
must be aware that the only duty I have to perform is to dis- 
miss you from that bar with a character unsullied."* If the 
judge's language be true, Christianity is an idle fiction. Who 
will wonder at the continuance of duelling, who will wonder 
that upon this subject the Moral Law is disregarded, if we 
are to be told that " unsullied character" — nay, that " the high- 
est possible character of man," is compatible with trampling 
Christianity under our feet ? 

How happy would it be for our country and for the world, 
how truly glorious for himself, if the king would act towards 
the duellist as his mother acted towards women who had lost 
their reputation. She rigidly excluded them from her pres- 
ence. If the British Monarch refused to allow the man who 
had fought a duel to approach him, it is probable that erelong 
duelling would be abolished, not merely in this country but in 
the Christian world. Nor will true Christian respect be 
violated by the addition, that in proportion to the power of 
doing good is the responsibility for omitting it. 

Glory : Military Virtues. — To prove that war is an 
evil were much the same as to prove that the light of the sun 

* The Trial is reported in the Caledonian Mercury of September 25, 
1826. 



CHAP. X.] PUBLIC NOTIONS OF MORALITY. 



219 



is a good. And yet, though no one will dispute the truth, there 
are few who consider, and few who know how great the evil 
is. The practice is encircled with so many glittering fic- 
tions, that most men are content with but a vague and inade- 
quate idea of the calamities, moral, physical, and political, 
which it inflicts upon our species. But if few men consider 
how prodigious its mischiefs are, they see enough to agree in 
the conclusion, that the less frequently it happens the better 
for the common interests of man. Supposing then that some 
wars are lawful and unavoidable, it is nevertheless manifest, 
that whatever tends to make them more frequent than neces- 
sity requires, must be very pernicious to mankind. Now, in 
consequence of a misdirection of public notions, this needless 
frequency exists. Public opinion is favourable, not so much 
to war in the abstract or in practice, as to the profession of 
arms ; and the inevitable consequence is this, that war itself 
is greatly promoted without reference to the causes for which 
it may be undertaken. By attaching notions of honour to the 
military profession, and of glory to military achievements, three 
wars probably have been occasioned where there otherwise 
would have been but one. To talk of the " splendours of con- 
quest," and the " glories of victory," to extol those who " fall 
covered with honour in their country's cause," is to occasion 
the recurrence of wars, not because they are necessary, but 
because they are desired. It is in fact contributing, accord- 
ing to the speaker's power, to desolate provinces and set vil- 
lages in flames, to ruin thousands and destroy thousands — to 
inflict, in brief, all the evils and the miseries which war in- 
flicts. " Splendours," — " Glories," — " Honours !" — the lis- 
tening soldier wants to signalize himself like the heroes who 
are departed ; he wants to thrust his sickle into the fields of 
fame and -reap undying laurels : — How shall he signalize 
himself without a war, and on what field can he reap glory 
but in the field of battle 1 The consequence is inevitable : 
Multitudes desire war ; — they are fond of war — and it re- 
quires no sagacity to discover, that to desire and to love it is 
to make it likely to happen. Thus a perpetual motive to hu- 
man destruction is created, of which the tendency is as inev- 
itable as the tendency of a stone to fall to the earth. The 
present state of public opinion manifestly promotes the re- 
currence of wars of all kinds, necessary (if such there are) 
and unnecessary. It promotes wars of pure aggression, of 
the most unmingled wickedness ; it promoted the wars of the 
departed Louises and Napoleons. It awards " glory" to the 
soldier wherever be his achievements and in whatever cause. 



220 INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUALS UPON [ESSAY II. 

Now, waiving the after consideration as to the nature of 
Glory itself, the individual may judge of his duties with re- 
spect to public opinion by its effects. To minister to the 
popular notions of glory is to encourage needless wars ; it is 
therefore his duty not to minister to those notions. Common 
talk by a man's fireside contributes its little to the universal 
evil, and shares in the universal offence. Of the writers of 
some books it is not too much to suppose, that they have oc- 
casioned more murders than all the clubs and pistols of 
assassins for ages have effected. Is there no responsibility 
for this ? 

But perhaps it will afford to some men new ideas if we en- 
quire what the real nature of the military virtues is. They 
receive more of applause than virtues of any other kind. 
How does this happen ? We must seek a solution in the 
seeming paradox, that their pretensions to the characters of 
Virtues are few and small. They receive much applause be- 
cause they merit little. They could not subsist without it ; 
and if men resolve to practice war, and consequently to re- 
quire the conduct which gives success to war, they must de- 
corate that conduct with glittering fictions, and extol the mili- 
tary virtues though they be neither good nor great. Of every 
species of real excellence it is the general characteristic that 
it is not anxious for applause. The more elevated the virtue 
the less the desire, and the less is the public voice a motive 
to action. What should we say of that man's benevolence 
who would not relieve a neighbour in distress unless the do- 
nation would be praised in a newspaper? What should we 
say of that man's piety who prayed only when he was " seen 
of men ?" But the military virtues live upon applause ; it is 
their vital element and their food, their great pervading mo- 
tive and reward. Are there, then, amongst the -respective 
virtues such discordances of character — such total contrariety 
of nature and essence ? No, No. But how, then, do you 
account for the fact, that whilst all other great virtues are in- 
dependent of the public praise and stand aloof from it, the 
military virtues can scarcely exist without it 1 

It is again a characteristic of exalted Virtue, that it tends 
to produce exalted virtues of other kinds. He that is distin- 
guished by diffusive benevolence, is rarely chargeable with 
profaneness or debauchery. The man of piety is not seen 
drunk. The man of candour and humility, is not vindictive 
or unchaste. Can the same thing be predicated of the ten- 
dency of military virtues ? Do they tend powerfully to 
the production of all other virtues ? Is the brave man pecu- 



CHAP. X.] PUBLIC NOTIONS OF MORALITY. 



221 



liarly pious ? Is the military patriot peculiarly chaste ? Is 
he who pants for glory and acquires it, distinguished by un- 
usual placability and temperance ? No no. How then do 
you account for the fact, that whilst other virtues thus strongly 
tend to produce and to foster one another,* the military vir- 
tues have little of such tendency, or none ? 

The simple truth, however veiled and however unwelcome, 
is this, that the military virtues will not endure examination. 
They are called what they are not, or what they are in a very 
inferior degree to that which popular notions imply. It would 
not serve the purposes of war to represent these qualities as 
being what they are ; we therefore dress them with factitious 
and alluring ornaments ; and they have been dressed so long 
that we admire the show, and forget to enquire what is under- 
neath. Our applauses of military virtues do not adorn them 
like the natural bloom of loveliness ; it is the paint of that 
which, if seen, would not attract, if it did not repel us. They 
are not like the verdure which adorns the meadow, but the 
greenness that conceals a bog. If the reader says that we in- 
dulge in declamation, we invite, we solicit him to investigate 
the truth. And yet, without enquiring further, there is con- 
clusive evidence in the fact, that glory, that praise, is the vital 
principle of military virtue. Let us take sound rules for our 
guides of judgment, and it is not possible, that we should re- 
gard any quality as possessing much virtue which lives only 
or chiefly upon praise. And who will pretend that the ranks 
of armies would be rilled if no tongue talked of bravery and 
glory, and no newspaper published the achievements of a re- 
giment ?f 

" Truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not show 
the masques and mummeries and triumphs of the world half 
so stately and daintily as candlelights. "| Let us dismiss, 
then, that candlelight examination which men are wont to 
adopt when they contemplate military virtues, and see what 
appearance they exhibit in the daylight of truth. Military 
talent, and active courage, and patriotism, or some other mo- 

* " The virtues are nearly related, and live in the greatest harmony 
with each other." — Opie. 

t It is pleasant to hear an intelligent woman say, " I cannot tell how 
or why the love of glory is a less selfish principle than the love of riches :"* 
and it is pleasant to hear one of our then principal Reviews say, " Glory 
is the most selfish of all passions except love."t That which is selfish 
can hardly be very virtuous. 

X Lord Bacon: Essays. 

* Memoirs of late Jane Taylor. f West. Rev. No. 13. 

19* 



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INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUALS UPON [ESSAY If. 



tive, appear to be the foundations and the subjects of our ap- 
plause. 

With respect to talent little needs to be said, since few 
have an opportunity of displaying it. An able general may 
exhibit his capacity for military affairs ; but of the mass of 
those who join in battles and participate in their " glories," 
little more is expected than that they should be obedient and 
brave. And as to the few who have the opportunity of dis- 
playing talent and who do display it, it is manifest that their 
claims to merit, independently of the purpose to which their 
talent is devoted, is little or none. A man deserves no ap- 
plause for the possession or for the exercise of talent as such. 
One man may possess and exercise as much ability in cor- 
rupting the principles of his readers, as another who corrects 
and purifies them. One man may exhibit as much ability in 
swindling, as another in effectually legislating against swin- 
dlers. To applaud the possession of talent is absurd, and, 
like many other absurd actions, is greatly pernicious. Our 
approbation should depend on the objects upon which the 
talent is employed. Military talents, like all others, are only 
so far proper subjects of approbation as they are employed 
aright. Yet the popular notion appears to be, that the display 
of talent in a military leader, is per se, entitled to praise. You 
might as well applaud the dexterity of a corrupt minister of 
state. The truth is, that talent, as such, is not a proper sub- 
ject of moral approbation any more than strength or beauty. 
But if we thus take away from the " glories" of military lead- 
ers all but that which is founded upon the causes in which 
their talents were engaged, what will remain to the Alexan- 
ders, and the Csesars, and the Jenghizes, and the Louises, and 
the Charleses, and the Napoleons, with whose " glories" the 
idle voice of fame is filled ? " Tout ce qui peut etre commun 
aux bons et aux medians, ne le rend point veritablement esti- 
mable." Cannot military talents be exhibited indifferently by 
the good and the bad ? Are they not in fact as often exhib- 
ited by vicious men as by virtuous ? They are, and therefore 
they are not really deserving of praise. But if any man 
should say that the circumstance of a leader's exerting his 
talents " for his king and country" is of itself a good cause, 
and therefore entitles him to praise, I answer that such a man 
is deluding himself with idle fictions. I hope presently to 
show this. Meanwhile it is to be remarked, that if this be a 
valid claim to approbation, " king and country" must always 
be in the right. Who will affirm this ? And yet, if it is not 
shown, you may as well applaud the brigand chief with his 



CHAP. X.] PUBLIC NOTIONS OF MORALITY. 



223 



thirty followers as the greater marauder with his thirty thou- 
sand. 

Valour and bravery, however, may be exhibited by the 
many — not by generals and admirals alone, but by ensigns and 
midshipmen, by seamen and by privates. What then is val- 
our, and what is bravery ? " There is nothing great but what 
is virtuous, nor indeed truly great but what is composed and 
quiet."'* There is much of truth in this. Yet where then is 
the greatness of bravery, for where is the composure and 
quietude of the quality ? " Valour or active courage is for 
the most part constitutional, and therefore can have no more 
claim to moral merit than wit, beauty, or health. "f Accord- 
ingly, the question which we have just asked respecting mili- 
tary talent, may be especially asked respecting bravery. Can- 
not bravery be exhibited in common by the good and the bad ? 
— Yet further. " It is a great weakness for a man to value 
himself upon any thing wherein he shall be outdone by fools 
and brutes." Is not the bravery of the bravest outdone even 
by brutes. When the soldier has vigorously assaulted the 
enemy, when though repulsed he returns to the conflict, when 
being wounded he still brandishes his sword, till it drops from 
his grasp by faintness or death — he surely is brave. What 
then is the moral rank to which he has attained ? He has 
attained to the rank of a bull-dog. The dog, too, vigorously 
assails his enemy ; when tossed into the air he returns to the 
conflict ; when gored he still continues to bite, and yields not 
his hold until he is stunned or killed. Contemplating bravery 
as such, there is not a man in Britain or in Europe whose 
bravery entitles him to praise which he must not share with 
the combatants of a cockpit. Of the moral qualities that are 
components of bravery, the reader may form some conception 
from this language of a man who is said to be a large landed 
proprietor, a magistrate, and a member of parliament. " I am 
one of those who think that evil alone does not result from 
poaching. The risk poachers run from the dangers that beset 
them, added to their occupation being carried on in cold dark 
nights, begets a hardihood of frame and contempt of danger 
that is not without its value. I never heard or knew of a 
poacher being a coward. They all make good soldiers ; and 
military men are well aware that two or three men in each 
troop or company, of bold and enterprising spirits, are not 
without their effect on their comrades." The same may of 
course be said of smugglers and highwaymen. If these are 

* Seneca. t Soame Jenyns : Internal Evid. of Christianity, * 

Prop. 3. 



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INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUALS UPON [ESSAY II. 



the characters in whom we are peculiarly to seek for bravery, 
what are the moral qualities of bravery itself ! All just, all 
rational, and I will venture to affirm all permanent reputa- 
tion refers to the mind or to virtue ; and what connexion has 
animal power or animal hardihood with intellect or goodness X 
I do not decry courage : he who was better acquainted than we 
are with the nature and worth of human actions, attached much 
value to courage, but he attached none to bravery.* Courage he 
recommended by his precepts and enforced by his example : 
bravery he never recommended at all. in.e wisdom of this dis- 
tinction and its accordancy with the principles of his religion are 
plain. Bravery requires the existence of many of those disposi- 
tions which he disallowed. Animosity, the desire of retaliation , 
the disposition to injure and destroy — all this is necessary to 
the existence of bravery, but all this is incompatible with 
Christianity. The courage which Christianity requires is to 
bravery what fortitude is to daring — an effort of the mental 
principles rather than of the spirits. It is a calm steady de- 
terminateness of purpose, that will not be diverted by solici- 
tation or awed by fear. " Behold, I go bound in the spirit 
unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me 
there ; save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, 
saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these 
things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself f 
What resemblance has bravery to courage like this ? This 
courage is a virtue, and a virtue which it is difficult to acquire 
or to practise ; and we have heedlessly or ingeniously trans- 
ferred its praise to another quality which is inferior in its na- 
ture and easier to acquire, in order that we may obtain the 
reputation of virtue at a cheap rate. 

Of those who thus extol the lower qualities of our nature, 
few perhaps are conscious to what a degree they are deluded. 
In exhibiting this delusion let us not forget the purpose for 
which it is done. The popular notion respecting bravery 
does not terminate in an innoxious mistake. The consequences 
are practically and greatly evil. He that has placed his 
hopes upon the praises of valour, desires of course an oppor- 
tunity of acquiring them, and this opportunity he cannot find 
but in the destruction of men. That such powerful motives 
will lead to this destruction when even ambition can scarcely 
find a pretext, we need not the testimony of experience to as- 

* " Whatever merit valour may have assumed among Pagans, with 
Christians it can pretend to none." Soame Jenyns : Internal Evid. of 
Christianity, Prop. 3. 

t Acts xx. 22. 



CHAP. X.] PUBLIC NOTIONS OF MORALITY. 



225 



sure us. It is enough that we consider the principles which 
actuate mankind. 

And if we turn from actions to motives, from bravery to 
patriotism, we are presented with similar delusions, and with 
similar mischiefs as their consequence. To " fight nobly for 
our country," to " fall covered with glory in our country's 
cause," to " sacrifice our lives for the liberties and laws and 
religion of our country," are phrases in the mouth of multi- 
tudes. What do they mean, and to whom do they apply 1 
We contend, that to say generally of those who perish in war 
that " they have died for their country," is simply untrue : and 
for this simple reason, that they did not fight for it. It is not 
true that patriotism is their motive. Why is a boy destined 
from school for the army 1 Is it that his father is more pa- 
triotic than his neighbour, who destines his son for the bar ? 
Or if the boy himself begs his father to buy an ensigncy, is 
it because he loves his country, or is it because he dreams of 
glory, and admires scarlet and plumes and swords ? The of- 
ficer enters the service in order that he may obtain an income, 
n«ot in order to benefit his fellow citizens. The private en- 
ters it because he prefers a soldier's life to another, or because 
he has no wish but the wish for change. And having entered 
the army, what is the motive that induces the private or his 
superiors to fight ? It is that fighting is part of their business ; 
that is one of the conditions upon which they were hired. 
Patriotism is not the motive. Of those who fall in battle, is 
there one in a hundred who even thinks of his country's good 1 
He thinks perhaps of glory and of the fame of his regiment 
— he hopes perhaps that " Salamanca" or " Austerlitz" will 
henceforth be inscribed on its colours ; but rational views of 
his country's welfare are foreign to his mind. He has 
scarcely a thought about the matter. He fights in battle as a 
horse draws in a carriage, because he is compelled to do it, 
or because he has done it before ; but he probably thinks no 
more of his country's good than the same horse, if he were 
carrying corn to a granary, would think he was providing for 
the comforts of his master. The truth therefore is, that we 
give to the soldier that of which we are wont to be sufficiently 
sparing — a gratuitous concession of merit. If he but " fights 
bravely," he is a patriot and secure of his praise. 

To sacrifice our lives for the liberties and laws and religion 
of our native land, are undoubtedly high-sounding words ; but 
who are they that will do it ? Who is it that will sacrifice 
his life for his country ? Will the senator who supports a 
war ? Will the writer who declaims upon patriotism ? Will 



326 



INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUALS UPON [ESSAY II. 



the minister of religion who recommends the sacrifice ? 
Take away war and its fictions, and there is not a man of 
them who will do it. Will he sacrifice his life at home ? If 
the loss of his life in London or at York would procure just 
so much benefit to his country as the loss of one soldier's in 
the field, would he be willing to lay his head upon the block ? 
Is he willing, for such a contribution to his country's good, to 
resign himself without notice and without remembrance to 
the executioner ? Alas for the fictions of war ! where is such 
•a man ? Men will not sacrifice their lives at all unless it be 
in war j and they do not sacrifice them in war from motives of 
patriotism. In no rational use of language, therefore, can it 
be said that the soldier " dies for his country." 

Not that there may not be or that there have not been per- 
sons who fight from motives of patriotism. But the occur- 
rence is comparatively rare. There may be physicians who 
qualify themselves for practice from motives of benevolence 
to the sick ; or lawyers who assume the gown in order to 
plead for the injured and oppressed ; but it is an unusual mo- 
tive, and so is patriotism to the soldier. 

And after all, even if all soldiers fought out of zeal for their 
country, what is the merit of Patriotism itself I I do not say 
that it possesses no virtue, but I affirm and hope hereafter to 
show, that its virtue is extravagantly overrated,* and that if 
every one who fought did fight for his country, he would often 
be actuated only by a mode of selfishness— of selfishness 
which sacrifices the general interests of the species to the 
interests of a part. 

Such and so low are the qualities which have obtained 
from deluded and deluding millions, fame, honours, glories. 
A prodigious structure, and almost without a base : — a struc- 
ture so vast, so brilliant, so attractive, that the greater portion 
of mankind are content to gaze in admiration, without any 
enquiry into its basis or any solicitude for its durability. If, 
however, it should be that the gorgeous temple will be able to 
stand only till Christian truth and light become predominant, 
it surely will be wise of those who seek a niche in its apart- 
ments as their paramount and final good, to pause ere they 
proceed. If they desire a reputation that shall outlive guilt 
and fiction, let them look to the basis of military fame. If 
this fame should one day sink ' into oblivion and contempt, it 
will not be the first instance in which wide-spread glory has 
been found to be a glittering bubble that has burst and been 
forgotten. Look at the days of chivalry. Of the ten thou- 
* Essay III, c. 17. 



CHAP. X.] PUBLIC NOTIONS' CP MORALITY. 



227 



sand Quixottes of the middle ages, where is now the honour 
or the name 1 Yet poets once sang their praises, and the 
chronicler of their achievements believed he was recording 
an everlasting fame. Where are now the glories of the tour- 
nament ? Glories 

" Of which all Europe rang from side to side." 

Where is the champion whom princesses caressed and nobles 
envied ? Where are the triumphs of Scotus and Aquinus, and 
where are the folios that perpetuated their fame ? The glories 
of war have indeed outlived these ; human passions are less 
mutable than human follies ; but I am willing to avow the 
conviction, that these glories are alike destined to sink into 
forgetfulness, and that the time is approaching when the ap- 
plause of heroism and the splendours of conquest will be 
remembered only as follies and iniquities that are past. Let 
him who seeks for fame other than that which an era of 
Christian purity will allow, make haste ; for every hour that 
he delays its acquisition will shorten its duration. This is 
certain if there be certainty in the promises of Heaven. 

But we must not forget the purpose for which these illus- 
trations of the Military Virtues are offered to the reader ; — to 
remind him not merely that they are fictions, but fictions 
which are the occasion of excess of misery to mankind — to 
remind him that it is his business, from considerations of hu- 
manity and of religion, to refuse to give currency to the po- 
pular delusions — and to remind him that, if he does promote 
them, he promotes, by the act, misery in all its forms and 
guilt in all its excesses. Upon such subjects, men are not 
left to exercise their own inclinations. Morality interposes 
its commands ; and they are commands which, if we would 
be moral, we must obey. 

Unchastity. — No portion of these pages is devoted to the 
enforcement of moral obligations upon this subject, partly 
because these obligations are commonly acknowledged how 
little soever they may be regarded, and partly because, as the 
reader will have seen, the object of these Essays is to recom- 
mend those applications of the Moral Law which are fre- 
quently neglected in the practice even of respectable men. — ■ 
But in reference to the influence of public opinion on offences 
connected with the sexual constitution, it will readily be per- 
ceived that something should be said, when it is considered 
that some of the popular notions respecting them are extra- 
vagantly inconsistent with the Moral Law. The want of 
chastity in a woman is visited by public opinion with the 



228 



INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUALS UPON [ESSAY II. 



severest reprobation — in men, with very little or with none. 
Now, morality makes no such distinction. The offence is fre- 
quently adverted to in the Christian Scriptures ; but I believe 
there is no one precept which intimates that, in the estimation 
of its writer, there was any difference in the turpitude of the 
offence respectively in men and women. If it be in this 
volume that we are to seek for the principles of the Moral 
Law, how shall we defend the state of popular opinion ? " If 
unchastity in a woman, whom St. Paul terms the glory of 
man, be such a scandal and dishonour, then certainly in a 
man, who is both the image and glory of God, it must, though 
commonly not so thought, be much more deflowering and 
dishonourable."* But this departure from the Moral Law, 
like all other departures, produces its legitimate, that is, per- 
nicious effects. The sex in whom popular opinion reprobates 
the offences, comparatively seldom commits them : the sex 
in whom it tolerates the offences, commits them to an enor- 
mous extent. It is obvious, therefore, that to promote the 
present state of popular opinion, is to promote and to encou- 
rage the want of chastity in men. 

That some very beneficial consequences result from the 
strong direction of its current against the offence in a woman, 
is certain. The consciousness that upon the retention of her 
reputation depends so tremendous a stake, is probably a more 
efficacious motive to its preservation than any other. The 
abandonment to which the loss of personal integrity generally 
consigns a woman, is a perpetual and fearful warning to the 
sex. Almost every human being deprecates and dreads the 
general disfavour of mankind ; and thus, notwithstanding 
temptations of all kinds, the number of women who do incur 
it is comparatively small. 

But the fact that public opinion is thus powerful in re- 
straining one sex, is a sufficient evidence that it would also 
be powerful in restraining the other. Waiving for the pres- 
ent the question whether the popular disapprobation of the 
crime in a woman is not too severe — if the man who was 
guilty was forthwith and immediately consigned to infamy ; 
if he was expelled from virtuous society, and condemned for 
the remainder of life to the lowest degradation, how quickly 
would the frequency of the crime be diminished ! The re- 
formation amongst men would effect a reformation amongst 
women too ; and the reciprocal temptations which each ad- 
dresses to the other, would in a great degree be withdrawn. 
* Milton : Christian Doctrine, p. 624 



CHAP. X.] PUBLIC NOTIONS OF MORALITY. 



229 



If there were few seducers few would be seduced ; and few 
therefore would in turn become the seducers of men. 

But instead of this direction of public opinion, what is the 
ordinary language respecting the man who thus violates the 
Moral Law ? We are told that " he is rather unsteady ;" that 
" there is a little of the young man about him ;" that " he is 
not free from indiscretions." And what is he likely to think 
of all this ? Why, that for a young man to have a little of the 
young man about him is perfectly natural ; that to be rather 
unsteady and a little indiscreet is not, to be sure, what one 
would wish, but that it is no great harm and will soon wear 
off. To employ such language is, we say, to encourage and 
promote the crime — a crime which brings more wretchedness 
and vice into the world than almost any other ; and for which, 
if Christianity is to be believed, the Universal Judge will call 
to a severe account. If the immediate agent be obnoxious to 
punishment, can he who encouraged him expect to escape ? 
I am persuaded that the frequency of this gross offence is 
attributable much more to the levity of public notions as 
founded upon levity of language, than to passion ; and per- 
haps, therefore, some of those who promote this levity may 
be in every respect as criminal as if they committed the crime 
itself. 

Women themselves contribute greatly to the common levity 
and to its attendant mischiefs. Many a female who talks in 
the language of abhorrence of an offending sister, and averts 
her eye in contumely if she meets her in the street, is per- 
fectly willing to be the friend and intimate of the equally 
offending man. That such women are themselves duped by 
the vulgar distinction is not to be doubted — but then we are 
not to imagine that she who practises this inconsistency 
abhors the crime so much as the criminal. Her abhorrence 
is directed, not so much to the violation of the Moral Law as 
to the party by whom it is violated. " To little respect has 
that woman a claim on the score of modesty, though her re- 
putation may be white as the driven snow, which smiles on 
the libertine whilst she spurns the victims of his lawless 
appetites." No No. — If such women would convince us 
that it is the impurity which they reprobate, let them repro- 
bate it wherever it is found : if they would convince us that 
morals or philanthropy is their motive when they spurn the 
sinning sister, let them give proof by spurning him who has 
occasioned her to sin. 

The common style of narrating occurrences and trials of 
seduction (fee, in the public prints, is very mischievous, 

20 



230 INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUALS UPON [ESSAY II. 

These flagitious actions are, it seems, a legitimate subject of 
merriment ; one of the many droll things which a newspaper 
contains. It is humiliating to see respectable men sacrifice 
the interests of society to such small temptation. They 
pander to the appetite of the gross and idle of the public : — 
they want to sell their newspapers. — Much of this ill-timed 
merriment is found in the addresses of counsel, and this is 
one mode amongst the many in which the legal profession 
appears to think itself licensed to sacrifice virtue to the usages 
which it has, for its own advantage, adopted. There is 
cruelty as well as other vices in these things. When we 
take into account the intense suffering which prostitution 
produces upon its victims and upon their friends, he who 
contributes, even thus indirectly, to its extension, does not 
exhibit even a tolerable sensibility to human misery. Even 
infidelity acknowledges the claims of humanity ; and there- 
fore, if religion and religious morals were rejected, this heart- 
less levity of language would still be indefensible. We call 
the man benevolent who relieves or diminishes wretchedness : 
what should we call him who extends and increases it ? 

In connexion with this subject, an observation suggests 
itself respecting the power of Character in affecting the whole 
moral principles of the mind. If loss of character does not 
follow a breach of morality, that breach may be single and 
alone. The agent's virtue is so far deteriorated, but the 
breach does not open wide the door to other modes of crime. 
If loss of character does follow one offence, one of the great 
barriers which exclude the flood of evil is thrown down ; and 
though the offence which produced loss of character be really 
no greater than the offence with which it is retained, yet its 
consequences upon the moral condition are incomparably 
greater. The reason is, that if you take away a person's 
reputation you take away one of the principal motives to pro- 
priety of conduct. The labourer who, being tempted to steal 
a piece of bacon from the farmer, finds that no one will take 
him into his house or give him employment, and that wherever 
he goes he is pointed at as a thief, is almost as much driven 
as tempted to repeat the crime. His fellow labourer, who 
has much more heinously violated the Moral Law by a flagi- 
tious intrigue with a servant girl, receives from the farmer a 
few reproaches and a few jests, retains his place, never 
perhaps repeats the offence, and subsequently maintains a 
decent morality. 

It has been said, " As a woman collects all her virtue into 
this point, the loss of her chastity is generally the destruction 



CHAP. X.] PUBLIC NOTIONS OF MORALITY. 



231 



of her moral principle." What is to be understood by col- 
lecting virtue into one point, it is not easy to discover. The 
truth is, that as popular notions have agreed that she who 
loses her chastity shall retain no reputation, a principal mo- 
tive to the practice of other virtues is taken away : — she 
therefore disregards them ; and thus by degrees her moral 
principle is utterly depraved. If public opinion was so modi- 
fied that the world did not abandon a woman who has been 
robbed of chastity, it is probable that a much larger number 
of these unhappy persons would return to virtue. The case 
of men offers illustration and proof. The unchaste man 
retains his character, or at any rate he retains so much that 
it is of great importance to him to preserve the remainder. 
Public Opinion accordingly holds its strong rein upon other 
parts of his conduct, and by this rein he is restrained from 
deviating into other walks of vice. If the direction of Public 
Opinion were exchanged, if the woman's offence were held 
venial and the man's infamous, the world might stand in won- 
der at the altered scene. We should have worthy and re- 
spectable prostitutes, while the men whom we now invite to 
our tables and marry to our daughters, would be repulsed as 
the most abandoned of mankind. Of this I have met with a 
curious illustration. — Amongst the North American Indians 
" seduction is regarded as a despicable crime, and more blame 
is attached to the man than to the woman : hence the offence 
on the part of the female is more readily forgotten and for- 
given, and she finds little or no difficulty in forming a subse- 
quent matrimonial alliance when deserted by her betrayer, 
who is generally regarded with distrust, and avoided in social 
intercourse"* 

It becomes a serious question how we shall fix upon the 
degree in which diminution of character ought to be conse- 
quent upon offences against morality. It is not I think too 
much to say, that no single crime, once committed, under the 
influence perhaps of strong temptation, ought to occasion 
such a loss of character as to make the individual regard him- 
self as abandoned. I make no exceptions — not even for 
murder. I am persuaded that some murders are committed 
with less of personal guilt than is sometimes involved in much 
smaller crimes : but however that may be, there is no reason 
why, even to the murderer, the motives and the avenues to 
amendment should be closed. Still less ought they to be 
closed against the female who is perhaps the victim — strictly 
the victim — of seduction. Yet if the public do not express, 
* Hunter's Memoirs. 



232 



INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUALS UPON [ESSAY II. 



and strongly express, their disapprobation, we have seen that 
they practically encourage offences. In this difficulty I know 
of no better and no other guide than that system which the 
tenor of Christianity prescribes — Abhorrence of the evil and 
commiseration of him who commits it. The union of these 
dispositions will be likely to produce, with respect to offences 
of all kinds, that conduct which most effectually tends to 
discountenance them, while it as effectually tends to reform 
the offenders. These, however, are not the dispositions 
which actuate the public in measuring their reprobation of 
unchastity in women. Something probably might rightly be 
deducted from the severity with which their offence is visited : 
much may be rightly altered in the motives which induce this 
severity. And as to men, much should be added to the quan- 
tum of reprobation, and much correction should be applied to 
the principles by which it is regulated. 

i\.nother illustration of the power of character, as such, to 
corrupt the principles or to preserve them, is furnished in the 
general respectability of the legal profession. We have seen 
that this profession, habitually and as a matter of courses- 
violates many and great points of morality, and yet I know 
not that their character as men is considerably inferior to that 
of others in similar walks of life. Abating the privileges 
under which the profession is presumed to act, many of their 
legal procedures are as flagitious as some of those which send 
unprivileged professions to the bar of justice. How then does 
it happen that the moral offenders whom we imprison, and 
try, and punish, are commonly in their general conduct de- 
praved, whilst the equal offenders whom we do not punish 
are not thus depraved ? The prisoner has usually lost much 
of his reputation before he becomes a thief, and at any rate 
he loses it with the act. But a man may enter the customary 
legal course with a fair name : Public Opinion has not so 
reprobated that course as to make it necessary to its pursuit 
that a man should already have become depraved. Whilst 
engaged in the ordinary legal practice he may be unjust at 
his desk or at the bar, he may there commit actions essen- 
tially and greatly wicked, and yet when he steps into his 
parlour his character is not reproached. A jest or two upon 
his adroitness, is probably all the intimation that he receives 
that other men do not regard it with perfect complacency. 
Such a man will not pick your pocket the more readily 
because he has picked a hundred pockets at the bar. This 
were to sacrifice his character : the other does not ; and 
accordingly all those motives to rectitude which the desire 



CHAP. X.] PUBLIC NOTIONS OF MORALITY. 



233 



of preserving reputation supplies, operate to restrain him from 
other offences. If public opinion were rectified, if character 
were lost by actual violations of the Moral Law, some of the 
ordinary processes of legal men would be practised only by 
those who had little character to lose. Not indeed that Pub- 
lic Opinion is silent respecting the habitual conduct of the 
profession. A secret disapprobation manifestly exists, of 
which sufficient evidence may be found even in the lampoons, 
and satires, and. proverbs, which pass currently in the world. 
Unhappily, the disapprobation is too slight, and especially it 
is too slightly expressed. When it is thus expressed, the 
lawyer sometimes unites, with at least apparent good-humour, 
in the jest — feeling, perhaps, that conduct which cannot be 
shown to be virtuous, it is politic to keep without the pale 
of the vices by a joke. 

Fame. — The observations which were offered respecting 
contributing to the passion for glory, involve kindred doctrines 
respecting contributions generally to individual Fame. If 
the pretensions of those with whose applauses the popular 
voice is filled, were examined by the only proper test, the 
test which Christianity allows, it would be found that multi- 
tudes whom the world thus honours must be shorn of their 
beams. Before Bacon's daylight of truth, Poets and States- 
men and Philosophers without number would hide their di- 
minished heads. The mighty indeed would be fallen. Yet 
it is for the acquisition of this fame that multitudes toil. It 
is their motive to action ; and they pursue that conduct which 
will procure fame whether it ought to procure it or not. The 
inference as to the duties of individuals in contributing to 
fame, is obvious. 

" The profligacy of a man of fashion is looked upon with 
much less contempt and aversion than that of a man of 
meaner condition."* It ought to be looked upon with much 
more. But men of fashion are not our concern. Our busi- 
ness is with men of talent and genius, with the eminent and 
the great. The profligacy of these, too, is regarded- with 
much less of aversion than that of less gifted men. To be 
great, whether intellectually or otherwise, is often like a pass- 
port to impunity ; and men talk as if we ought to speak leni- 
ently of the faults of a man who delights us by his genius or 
Ids talent. This precisely is the man whose faults we should 
be most prompt to mark, because he is the man whose faults 
are most seducing to the world. Intellectual superiority 
brings, no doubt, its congenial temptations. Let these affect 
* Ad. Smith : Theo. Mor. Sent. 
20* 



234 INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUALS UPON [ESSAY II. 

our judgments of the man, but let them not diminish our rep- 
robation of his offences. So to extenuate the individual as 
to apologize for his faults, is to injure the cause of virtue in 
one of its most vulnerable parts. " Oh! that I could see in 
men who oppose tyranny in the state, a disdain of the tyran- 
ny of low passions in themselves. I cannot reconcile my- 
self to the idea of an immoral patriot, or to that separation 
of private from public virtue which some men think to be 
possible.' 1 * Probably it is possible : probably there may be 
such a thing as an immoral patriot : for public opinion ap- 
plauds the patriotism without condemning the immorality. 
If men constantly made a fit deduction from their praises of 
public virtue on account of its association with private vice, 
the union would frequently be severed ; and he who hoped 
for celebrity from the public would find it needful to be good 
as well as great. He who applauds human excellence and 
really admires it, should endeavour to make its examples as 
pure and perfect as he can. He should hold out a motive to 
consistency of excellence, by evincing that nothing else can 
obtain praise unmingled with censure. This endeavour 
should be constant and uniform. The hearer should never 
be allowed to suppose that in appreciating a person r s merit's, 
we are indifferent to his faults. It has been complained of 
one of our principal wwks of Periodical Literature, that 
amongst its many and ardent praises of Shakespeare, it has 
almost never alluded to his indecencies. The silence is 
reprehensible : for what is a reader to conclude but that 
indecency is a very venial offence ? Under such circum- 
stances, not to be with morality is to be against it. Silence 
is positive mischief. People talk to us of liberality, and of 
allowances for the aberrations of genius, and for the tempta- 
tions of greatness. It is well. Let the allowances be made. 
— But this is frequently only affectation of candour. It is 
not that we are lenient to failings, but that we are indifferent 
to vice. It is not even enlightened benevolence to genius or 
greatness itself. The faults and vices with which talented 
men are chargeable deduct greatly from their own happiness ; 
and it cannot be doubted that their misdeeds have been the 
more willingly committed from the consciousness that apolo- 
gists would be found amongst the admiring world. It is suf- 
ficient to make that world knit its brow in anger, to insist 
upon the moral demerits of a Robert Burns. Pathetic and 
voluble extenuations are instantly urged. There are exten- 
uations of such a man's vices, and they ought to be regarded : 
* Dr. Price : Revolution Serm. 



CHAP. X.] PUBLIC NOTIONS OF MORALITY. 



235 



but no extenuations can remove the charge of voluntary and 
intentional violations of morality. Let us not hear of the 
enthusiasm of poetry. Men do not write poetry as they 
chatter with their neighbours : they sit down to a deliberate 
act ; and he who in his verses offends against morals, inten- 
tionally and deliberately offends. 

After all, posterity exercises some justice in its award. 
When the first glitter and the first applauses are past — when 
death and a few years of sobriety have given opportunity to 
the public mind to attend to truth, it makes a deduction, 
though not a due deduction, for the shaded portions of the 
great man's character. It is not forgotten that Marlborough 
was avaricious, that Bacon was mean ; and there are great 
names of the present day of whom it will not be forgotten 
that they had deep and dark shades in their reputation. It is 
perhaps wonderful that those who seek for fame are so indif- 
ferent to these deductions from its amount. Supposing the 
intellectual pretensions of Newton and Voltaire were equal, 
how different is their fame ! How many and how great 
qualifications are employed in praising the one ! How few 
and how small in praising the other ! Editions of the works 
of some of our first writers are advertised, " in which the 
exceptionable passages are expunged." How foolish, how 
uncalculating even as to celebrity, to have inserted these 
passages ! To write in the hope of fame, works which pos- 
terity will mutilate before they place them in their libraries ! 
— Charles James Fox said, that if, during his administration, 
they could effect the abolition of the slave trade, it " would 
entail more true glory upon them, and more honour upon their 
country, than any other transaction in which they could be 
engaged."* If this be true, (and who will dispute it?) min- 
isters usually provide very ill for their reputation with pos- 
terity. How anxiously devoted to measures comparatively 
insignificant ! How phlegmatic respecting those calls of hu- 
manity and public principle, a regard of which will alone 
secure the permanent honours of the world ! It may safely 
be relied upon, that " much more imperishable is the great- 
ness of goodness than the greatness of power,"! or the 
greatness of talent. And the difference will progressively 
increase. If, as there is reason to believe, the moral condi- 
tion of mankind will improve, their estimate of the good por- 
tion of a great man's character will be enhanced, and their 
reprobation of the bad will become more intense — until at 
length it will perhaps be found, respecting some of those 
* Fell's Memoirs. t Sir R. K. Porter. 



236 



INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUALS UPON [ESSAY II. 



who now receive the applauses of the world, that the balance 
of public opinion is against them, and that, in the universal 
estimate of merit and demerit, they will be ranked on the 
side of the latter. These motives to virtue in great men are 
not addressed to the Christian : he has higher motives and 
better : but since it is more desirable that a man should act 
well from imperfect motives than that he should act ill, we 
urge him to regard the integrity of his fame. 

The Press. — It is manifest that if the obligations which 
have been urged apply to those who speak, they apply with 
tenfold responsibility to those who write. The man who, in 
talking to half a dozen of his acquaintance, contributes to 
confuse or pervert their moral notions, is accountable for the 
mischief which he may do six persons. He who writes a 
book containing similar language, is answerable for a so much 
greater amount of mischief as the number of his readers 
may exceed six, and as the influence of books exceeds that 
. of conversation, by the evidence of greater deliberation in 
their contents and by the greater attention which is paid by 
the reader. It is not a light matter, even in this view, to 
write a book for the public. We very insufficiently consider 
the amount of the obligations and the extent of the respon- 
sibility which we entail upon ourselves. Every one knows 
the power *of the press in influencing the public mind. He 
that publishes five hundred copies of a book, of which any 
part is likely to derange the moral judgment of a reader, con- 
tributes materially to the propagation of evil. If each of 
his books is read by four persons, he endangers the infliction 
of this evil, whatever be its amount, upon two thousand 
minds. Who shall tell the sum of the mischief? In this 
country the periodical press is a powerful engine for evil or 
for good. The influence of the contents of one number of a 
newspaper may be small, but it is perpetually recurring. 
The editor of a journal, of which no more than a thousand 
copies are circulated in a week, and each of which is read 
by half a dozen persons, undertakes in a year a part of the 
moral guidance of thirty thousand individuals. Of some 
daily papers the number of readers is so great, that in the 
course of twelve months they may influence the opinions and 
the conduct of six or eight millions of men. To say nothing 
therefore of editors who intentionally mislead and vitiate the 
public, and remembering with what carelessness respecting 
the moral tendency of articles a newspaper is filled, it may 
safely be concluded that some creditable editors do harm in 



CHAP. X.] PUBLIC NOTIONS OF MORALITY. 



237 



the world to an extent, in comparison with which robberies 
and treasons are as nothing. 

It is not easy to imagine the sum of advantages which 
would result if the periodical press not only excluded that 
which does harm, but preferred that which does good. Not 
that grave moralities, not, especially, that religious disquisi- 
tions, are to be desired ; but that every reader should see and 
feel that the editor maintained an allegiance to virtue and to 
truth. There is hardly any class of topics in which this 
allegiance may not be manifested, and manifested without 
any incongruous associations. You may relate the common 
occurrences of the day in such a manner as to do either 
good or evil. The trial of a thief, the particulars of a con- 
flagration, the death of a statesman, the criticism of a debate, 
and a hundred other matters, may be recorded so as to exer- 
cise a moral influence over the reader for the better or the 
worse. That the influence is frequently for the worse needs 
no proof ; and it is so much the less defensible because it 
may be changed to the contrary without a word, directly, re- 
specting morals or religion. 

However, newspapers do much more good than harm, 
especially in politics. They are in this country one of the 
most vigorous and beneficial instruments of political advan- 
tage. They effect incalculable benefit both in checking the 
statesman who would abuse power, and in so influencing the 
public opinion as to prepare it for, and therefore to render 
necessary, an amelioration of political and civil institutions. 
The great desideratum is enlargement of views and purity 
of principle. We want in editorial labour less of partizan- 
ship, less of petty squabbles about the worthless discussions 
of the day : we want more of the philosophy of politics, 
more of that grasping intelligence which can send a reader's 
reflections from facts to principles. Our Journals are, to 
what they ought to be, what a chronicle of the middle ages 
is to a philosophical history. The disjointed fragments of 
political intelligence ought to be connected by a sort of 
enlightened running commentary. There is talent enough 
embarked in some of these ; but the talent too commonly 
expends itself upon subjects and in speculations which are 
of little interest beyond the present week. 

And here we are reminded of that miserable direction to 
public opinion which is given in Historical Works.* I do 

* " Next to the guilt of those who commit wicked actions, is that of 
the historian who glosses them over and excuses them." Southey; 
Book of the Church, c. 8. 



238 



INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUALS ETC. [ESSAY II. 



not speak of party bias, though that is sufficient!}'' mischiev- 
ous ; but of the irrational selection by historians of compara- 
tively unimportant things to fill the greater portion of their 
pages. People exclaim that the history of Europe is little 
more than a history of human violence and wickedness. 
But they confound History with that portion of history which 
historians record. That portion is doubtless written almost 
in blood — but it is a very small, and in truth a very subordi- 
nate portion. The intrigues of cabinets ; the rise and fall of 
ministers ; wars and battles, and victories and defeats ; the 
plunder of provinces ; the dismemberment of empires ; these 
are the things which fill the pages of the historian, but these 
are not the things which compose the history of man. He 
that would acquaint himself with the history of his species, 
must apply to other and to calmer scenes. " It is a cruel morti- 
fication, in searching for what is instructive in the history 
of past times, to find that the exploits of conquerors who 
have desolated the earth and the freaks of tyrants who have 
rendered nations unhappy, are recorded with minute and 
often disgusting accuracy, while the discovery of useful arts 
and the progress of the most beneficial branches of com- 
merce, are passed over in silence, and suffered to sink into 
oblivion."* Even a more cruel mortification than this is to 
find recorded almost nothing respecting the intellectual and 
moral history of man. You are presented with five or six 
weighty volumes which profess to be a History of England ; 
and after reading them to the end you have hardly found any 
thing to satisfy that interesting question — how has my coun- 
try been enabled to advance from barbarism to. civilization ; 
to come forth from darkness into light ? Yes by applying 
philosophy to facts yourself, you may attain some, though it 
be but an imperfect, reply. But the historian himself should 
have done this. The facts of history, simply as such, are of 
comparatively little concern. He is the true historian of 
man who regards mere facts rather as the illustrations of 
history than as its subject matter. As to the history of cabi- 
nets and courts, of intrigue and oppression, of campaigns 
and generals, we can almost spare it all. It is of wonder- 
fully little consequence whether they are remembered or not, 
except as lessons of instruction — except as proofs of the 
evils of bad principles and bad institutions. For any other 
purpose, Blenheim! we can spare thee. And Louis, even 
Louis " le grand /" we can spare thee. And thy successor 
and his Pompadour ! we can spare ye all. 

* Roberston ; Disq. on Anct. Comm. of India. 



CHAP. XI.] 



INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 



239 



Much power is in the hands of the historian if he will ex- 
ert it : if he will make the occurrences of the past subservi- 
ent to the elucidation of the principles of human nature — of 
the principles of political truth — of the rules of political rec- 
titude ; if he will refuse to make men ambitious of power by 
filling his pages with the feats or freaks of men in power : if 
he will give no currency to the vulgar delusions about glory : — 
if he will do these things, and such as these, he will deserve 
well of his country and of man ; for he will contribute to that 
rectification of Public Opinion which, when it is complete 
and determinate, will be the most powerful of all earthly 
agents in ameliorating the social condition of the world. 



CHAPTER XL 

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

Ancient Classics — London University — The Classics in Boarding-schools 
— English grammar — Science and Literature — Improved system of 
Education — Orthography: Writing: Reading: Geography: Natural 
History: Biography: Natural Philosophy: Political Science — Indica- 
tions of a revolution in the system of Education — Female Education 
— The Society of Friends. 

" It is no less true than lamentable, that hitherto the educa- 
tion proper for civil and active life has been neglected ; that 
nothing has been done to enable those who are actually to 
conduct the affairs of the world, to carry them on in a manner 
worthy of the age and country in which they live, by commu- 
nicating to them the knowledge and the spirit of their age and 
country."* — " KnoAvledge does not consist in being able to 
read books, but in understanding one's business and duty in 
life." — " Most writers have considered the subject of Educa- 
tion as relative to that portion of it only which applies to 
learning ; but the first object of all, in every nation, is to 
make a man a good member of society." — " Education con- 
sists in learning what makes a man useful, respectable, and 
happy, in the line for which he is destined. "f 

If these propositions are true it is evident that the systems 
of Education which obtain, need great and almost total reform- 

* Art 4 ; Education. West. Rev. No 1. t Playfair: Causes 

of Decline of Nations, p. 97, 98, 227. 



240 



INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 



[ESSAY II. 



ation. What does a boy, in the middle class of society, 
learn at school of the knowledge and the spirit of his age and 
country ? When he has left school, how much does he under- 
stand of the business and duty of life ? 

Education is one of those things which Lord Bacon would 
describe as having lain almost unaltered " upon the dregs of 
time." We still fancy that we educate our children when we 
give them, as its principal constituent, that same instruction 
which was given before England had a literature of its own, 
and when Greek and Latin contained almost the sum of hu- 
man knowledge. Then the knowledge of Greek and Latin 

. a ■ 

was called, and not unjustly called, Learning. It was the 
learning which procured distinction and celebrity. A sort of 
dignity and charm was thrown around the attainments and the 
word which designated them. That charm has continued to 
operate to the present hour, and we still call him a learned 
man who is skilful in Latin and Greek. Yet Latin and Greek 
contain an extremely small portion of that knowledge which the 
world now possesses ; an extremely small portion of that which 
it is of most consequence to acquire. It would be well for soci- 
ety if this word Learning could be forgotten, or if we could make 
it the representative of other and very different ideas. But the 
delusion is continually propagated. The higher ranks of soci- 
ety give the tone to the notions of the rest ; and the higher 
classes are educated at Westminster and Eton, and Cambridge 
and Oxford. At all these the languages which have ceased to be 
the languages of a living people — the authors which communi- 
cate, relatively, little knowledge that is adapted to the present 
affairs of man — are made the first and foremost articles of Edu- 
cation. To be familiar with these, is still to be a " learned" man. 
Inferior institutions imitate the example ; and the parent who 
knows his son will be, like himself, a merchant or manufactu- 
rer, thinks it almost indispensable that he should " learn Latin." 

It may reasonably be doubted whether, to even the higher 
ranks of society, this preference of ancient learning is wise. 
It may reasonably be doubted whether, even at Oxford, a lit- 
erary revolution would not be a useful revolution. Indeed 
the very circumstance that the system of education there, is 
not essentially different from what it was centuries ago, is al- 
most a sufficient evidence that an alteration is needed. If the 
circumstances and the contexture of human society are altered 
— if the boundaries of knowledge are very greatly extended, 
and if that knowledge which is now applicable to the affairs 
of life is extremely different from that which was applicable 
long ages ago — it surely is plain that a system which has not, 



CHAP. XI.] 



INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 



241 



or has only slightly, accommodated itself to the new condition 
and new exigencies of human affairs, cannot be a good sys- 
tem, cannot be a reasonable and judicious system ? How 
stands the fact 1 When young men leave college to take part 
in the concerns of active life, how much assistance do they 
derive from classical literature ? Look at the House of Com- 
mons. How much does this literature contribute to a mem- 
ber's legislating wisely upon questions of Political Economy, 
of Jurisprudence, of Taxation, of Reform ? Or how much 
does it contribute to the capability of any other class of men 
to serve their families, their country, or mankind ? I speak 
not of those professions to which a dead language may be 
necessary. A physician learns Latin as he attends the dis- 
secting room : it is a part of his system of preparation for his 
pursuits in life. Even with the professions, indeed, the need 
of a dead language is factitious. It is necessary only because 
usage has made it so. But I speak of that portion of man- 
kind who, being exempt from the necessity for toil, fill the va- 
rious gradations of society from that of the prince to the pri- 
vate gentleman. Select what rank or what class you please, 
and ask how much its members are indebted to ancient learn- 
ing for their capability to discharge their duties as parents, as 
men, or as citizens of the state — the answer is literally, 
" Almost nothing." Now this is a serious answer, and involves 
serious consequences. A young man, when he enters upon 
the concerns of active life, has to set about acquiring new 
kinds of knowledge, knowledge totally dissimilar to the greater 
part of that which his " education" gave him ; and the know- 
ledge which education did give him he is obliged practically 
to forget — to lay it aside : it is something that is not adapted 
to the condition and the wants of society. But for what pur- 
pose are people educated unless it be to prepare them for this 
condition and these wants ? Or how can that be a judicious 
system which does not effect these purposes ? 

That no advantages result from the study of ancient classics 
it would be idle to maintain. But this is not the question. 
The question is, Whether so many advantages result from this 
study as from others that might be substituted ; and I am per- 
suaded that we shall become more and more willing to answer, 
No. With respect to the sum of knowledge which the works 
of antiquity convey, as compared with that which is conveyed 
by modern literature, the disproportion is great in the extreme. 
To say that the modern is a hundred times greater than the 
ancient, is to keep far from the language of exaggeration. 
And, to say the truth, the majority of those who are educated 

21 



242 



INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 



[essay it. 



at college leave it with but an imperfect acquaintance with 
those languages which they have spent years in professing to 
acquire. There are some men skilled in the languages ; there 
are some "learned" men; but the very circumstance that 
great skill procures celebrity, is an evidence that great skill is 
rare. Amongst educated laymen, the number is very small 
of those whose knowledge of Latin bears any respectable 
proportion to their knowledge of their own language — of that 
language which they have hardly professed to learn at all. 
If the London University should be successfully established, 
it is probable that at least one collateral benefit will result from 
it. The wide range of subjects which it proposes to embrace 
in its system of education, will possess an influence upon 
other institutions ; and the time may arrive when the impulse 
of public opinion shall reduce the mathematics of one of our 
Universities and the classics of both, to such a relative sta- 
tion amongst the objects of human study, as shall be better 
adapted to the purposes of human life. 

If considerations like these apply to the preference of clas- 
sical learning by those classes of society who can devote 
many years to the general purposes of education, much more 
do they apply to those who fill the middle ranks. Yet amongst 
these ranks the charm of the fiction has immense power. It 
has descended from Universities to Boarding-schools of thirty 
pounds a-year ; and the parent complacently pays the extra 
" three guineas," in order that his boy may " learn Latin." 
We affirm that the knowledge of Latin and Greek is all but 
useless to these boys, and that if the knowledge were useful 
they do not acquire it. What are the stations which they are 
about to fill ? One is to be a manufacturer, and one a banker, 
and one a merchant, and one a ship-owner, and one will un- 
derwrite at Lloyd's, and one will be a consul at Toulon. Nay, 
we might go lower and say, one will be a tanner, and one a 
draper, and one a corn-factor. Yet these boys must learn 
Latin, and perhaps Greek too. And they do actually spend 
day after day, and perhaps year after year, upon " Hie haec 
hoc," — Propria quae maribus," — " As in praesenti," — " Et, and ; 
cum, when ;" and the like. What conceivable relationship do 
these things bear to making steam-engines, or discounting bills, 
or shipping cargoes, or making leather, or selling cloth? 
None. But it will be said, What relationship does any merely 
literary pursuit bear ? Or why should a merchant's son read 
Paradise Lost ? Such questions conduct us to the just view 
of the case ; and accordingly we answer, Let these young per- 
sons attend to literature, but let it be literature of the most 



CHAP. XI.] 



INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 



243 



expedient kind. Let them read Paradise Lost. Why ? Be- 
cause it is delightful, and because they can do it without 
learning a language in order to acquire the power : if Paradise 
Lost existed only in Arabic, I should think it preposterous to 
teach young persons Arabic in order that they might read it. 
To those who are to fill the active stations of life, literature 
must always be a subordinate concern ; and it would be vain 
to deny that our own language possesses a sufficient store for 
them without learning others to increase it. 

But indeed the children of the middle classes do not learn 
the languages. They do not learn them so as to be able to 
appreciate the merits and the beauties of ancient literature. 
Ask the boys themselves. Ask them whether they could hold 
an hour's conversation with Cicero if he should stand before 
them. The very supposition is absurd. Or can they read 
and enjoy Cicero as they read and enjoy Addison? No. 
They do not learn the ancient languages. They pore over 
rules and exercises, and syntax and quantities ; but as to learn- 
ing the language, in the same sense as that in which it may 
be said they learn English, there is not one in a hundred, nor 
probably in ten thousand, who does it. Yet unless a person 
does learn a language so as to read it at least with perfect 
facility, what becomes of the use of the study as a means of 
elevating the taste ? This is one of the advantages which are 
attributed to the study of the classics. But without enquiring 
whether the taste might not be as well cultivated by other 
means, one short consideration is sufficient : that the taste is 
not cultivated by studying the classics but by mastering them — 
by acquiring such a familiarity with these works as enables us 
to appreciate their excellences. This familiarity, or any thing 
that approaches to this familiarity, schoolboys do not acquire. 
Playfair makes a computation from which he concludes that 
in ordinary boarding-schools, " not above one in a hundred 
learns to read even Latin decently well ; that is, one good 
reader for every ten thousand pounds expended." " As to 
speaking Latin," he adds, " perhaps one out of a thousand 
may learn that : so that there is a speaker for each sum of one 
hundred thousand pounds spent on the langurge."* 

Then it is said that the act of studying the ancient languages 
exercises the memory, cultivates the habit of attention, and 
teaches, too, the art of reasoning. Grant all this. Cannot, 
then, the memory be exercised as well by acquiring valuable 
knowledge as by acquiring a mere knowledge of words 1 
Would the memory lose any thing by affixing ideas to the 
* Enq. Causes of Decline of Nations, p. 224. 



244 



INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 



[ESSAY II. 



words it learnt? The same questions apply to those who 
urge the habit of attention, and to all those advocates of the 
study who insist upon the exercise which it gives to the mind. 
We do not question the utility of this exercise ; we only say, 
that while the mind is exercised it should also be fed. That 
such topics of advocacy are resorted to, is itself an indication 
of the questionable utility of the study. No one thinks it 
necessary to adduce such topics as reasons for learning Ad- 
dition and Subtraction. 

The intelligent reader will perceive that the ground upon 
which these objections to classical studies are urged is, that 
they occupy time which might be more beneficially employed. 
If the period of education were long enough to learn the an- 
cient languages, in addition to the more beneficial branches 
of knowledge, our enquiry would be of another kind. But 
the period is not long enough : a selection must be made ; 
and that which it has been our endeavour to show is, that, in 
selecting the classics, we make an unwise selection. 

The remasks which follow will be understood as applying 
to the middle ranks of society ; that is, to the ranks in which 
the greatest sum of talent and virtue resides, and by which 
the business of the world is principally carried on. If we 
take up a card of terms of an ordinary Boarding-School, we 
probably meet with an enumeration something like this : — 
" Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, English Grammar, Composi- 
tion, History, Geography, Use of the Globes," &c. ; besides 
the " accomplishments," and French, Greek, and Latin. " Edu- 
cation consists in learning what makes a man useful, respect- 
able, and happy in the line for which he is destined." Useful, 
respectable, and happy, not merely in his counting-house, but 
in his parlour ; not merely in his own house, but amongst his 
neighbours, and as a member of civilized society. Now, 
surely the list of subjects which are set down above is, to say 
the least, very imperfect. Besides, reading, writing, and 
arithmetic, what is the amount of knowledge which it con- 
veys 1 English Grammar : — This is, in fact, not learnt by 
committing to memory lessons in the " grammar book." Com- 
position : — This is of consequence ; although, as school econ- 
omy is now managed, it makes a better appearance on the 
master's card than on the boy's paper. History, Geography, 
and the Globe problems, are of great interest and value ; and 
the great unhappiness is, that such studies are postponed to 
others of comparatively little worth. 

Since human knowledge is so much more extensive than 
the opportunity of individuals for acquiring it, it becomes of 



CHAP. XI.] INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 245 

the greatest importance so to economize the opportunity as to 
make it subservient to the acquisition of as large and as valu- 
able a portion as we can. It is not enough to show that a 
given branch of education is useful ; you must show that it is 
the most useful that can be selected. Remembering this, I 
think it would be expedient to dispense with the formal study 
of English Grammar — a proposition which, I doubt not, many 
a teacher will hear with wonder and disapprobation. We 
learn the grammar in order that we may learn English ; and 
we learn English whether we study grammars or not. Espe- 
cially we shall acquire a competent knowledge of our own 
language, if other departments of our education were improved. 
A boy learns more English Grammar by joining in an hour's 
conversation with educated people, than in poring for an hour 
over Murray or Home Tooke. If he is accustomed to such 
society, and to the perusal of well-written books, he will learn 
English Grammar though he never sees a word about syntax; 
and if he is not accustomed to such society and such reading, 
the " grammar books" at a boarding-school will not teach it. 
Men learn their own language by habit and not by rules ; and 
tins is just what we might expect ; for the grammar of a lan- 
guage is itself formed from the prevalent habits of speech and 
writing. A compiler of grammar first observes these habits, 
and then makes his rules ; but if a person is himself familiar 
with the habits, why study the rules ? I say nothing of gram- 
mar as a general science, because, although the philosophy 
of language be a valuable branch of human knowledge, it 
were idle to expect that schoolboys should understand it. 
The objection is to the system of attempting to teach children 
formally that which they will learn practically without teaching. 
A grammar of Murray's lies before me, of which the leaves 
are worn into rags by being " learnt." I find the child is 
to learn that words are articulate sounds, used by common 
consent as signs of our ideas. Now, I am persuaded that to 
nine out of every ten who " get this lesson by heart," it con- 
veys little more information than if the sentence were in Es- 
quimaux. They do not know, with any distinctness, what 
" articulate sounds" means — nor what the phrase " common 
consent" means — nor what " signs of ideas" means ; and yet 
they know, without learning, all that this formidable sentence 
proposes to teach. They know perfectly well that they 
speak to their brothers and sisters in order to convey their 
ideas. Again : " An improper diphthong has but one of the 
vowels sounded, as ea in eagle, oa in boat." Does not every 
child who can spell the words eagle and boat know this with- 

21* 



246 



INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 



[ESSAY II. 



out hearing a word about improper diphthongs ? This species 
of instruction is like that of a man who, seeing a boy running 
after a hoop, should stop him to make him learn by heart, 
that in order to run he must use, in a certain order, flexors 
and extensors and the tendon Achilles. A little girl runs to 
her mother and says, " Mary has given me Cowper's Task : 
This is what I wanted." But still the little girl must learn 
from her " grammar book" how to use the word what. And 
this is the process : — " What is a kind of compound relative, 
including both the antecedent and the relative, and is equiva- 
lent to that which, as, This is what I wanted !" It really is 
wonderful that such a system of instruction should be con- 
tinued — a system which most laboriously attempts to teach 
that which a chifd will learn without teaching, and which is 
almost utterly abortive in itself. Children do not learn to 
speak and write correctly by learning lessons like these. A 
gentleman told me the other day, that he learnt one of Mur- 
ray's grammars until he could actually repeat it from begin- 
ning to end ; and he does not recollect that one particle of 
knowledge was conveyed to his mind by it. 

Whilst the attempt thus to teach grammar is so needless 
and so futile, it occupies a great deal of a boy's time ; and 
by doing this, it does great mischief, since his time is precious 
indeed. He might learn a great deal more of grammar by 
reading usefid and interesting books, and by conversation re- 
specting science and literature with an educated master, than 
by acquiring grammatical rules by rote. Grammar would be 
a collateral acquisition ; he would learn it whilst he was 
learning other important things. 

In general, Science is preferable to Literature — the know- 
ledge of things to the knowledge of words. It is not by litera- 
ture, nor by merely literary men, that the business of human 
society is now carried on. " Directly and immediately we 
have risen to the station which we occupy, not by literature, 
not by the knowledge of extinct languages, but by the sciences 
of politics, of law, of public economy, of commerce, of mathe- 
matics ; by astronomy, by chemistry, by mechanics, by natu- 
ral history. It is by these that we are destined to rise yet 
higher. These constitute the business of society, and in these 
ought we to seek for the objects of education."* 

Yet at school how little do our children learn of these ! 
The reader will ask, what system of education we would re- 
commend ; and although the writer of these pages can make 
no pretensions to accuracy of knowledge upon the subject, he 

* Art. 9. Outlines of Philosophical Education, &c. West. Rev. No. 7. 



CHAP. XI.] 



INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION". 



247 



thinks that an improved system would embrace, even in or- 
dinary boarding-schools, such topics of instruction as these : 

Reading — Writing — Common Arithmetic — Book-keeping. 
Geography — Natural History, embracing Zoology, Botany, Mineralo- 
gy, &c. 

History of Mankind, especially the History of recent times. 
Biography, particularly of moderns. 

Natural Philosophy, embracing Mechanics, Pneumatics. Optics, &c. ; 

and illustrated by experiments : and embracing also Chemistry 

with experiments — Galvanism, &c. 
Geology — Land Measuring — Familiar Geometry. 

Elements of Political science ; embracing Principles of Religious and 
Civil Liberty ; of Civil Obedience ; of Penal Law and the general 
Administration of Justice : of Political Economy, &.c. 

If the reader should think that boys under sixteen can ac- 
quire little or no knowledge of these multifarious subjects, he 
is to remember what the enumeration excludes, and how vast 
a proportion of a boy's time the excluded subjects now occupy. 
The whole, perhaps, of all his forenoons is now devoted to 
Latin — Latin is excluded. An hour before breakfast is prob- 
ably spent in learning sentences in a book of Grammar : — 
this mode of learning Grammar is excluded. The amount of 
knowledge which a boy might acquire during these hours is 
very great. The formal learning of spelling does not appear 
in our enumeration. In many schools, this occupies a con- 
siderable portion of every week, if not of every day. Spell- 
ing may be learnt, and in fact is learnt, like grammar, by habit. 
A person reads a book, and, without thinking of it, insensibly 
learns to spell : that is, he perceives, when he writes a word 
incorrectly, that it does not bear the same appearance as he 
has been accustomed to observe. Some persons, when they 
are in doubt as to the orthography of a word, write it in two 
or three ways, and their eye tells them which is correct. 
Here again is a considerable saving of time. Nor is this all. 
I would not formally teach boys to write. I would not give 
them a Copy Book to write, hour after hour, Reward sweetens 
Labour and Industry is praised ; but, since they would have 
occasion to write many things in the pursuit of their other 
studies, I would require them to write those things fairly : — ■ 
that is, once more, they should learn to write whilst they are 
learning to think. Nor would I formally teach them to read ; 
but since they would have many books to peruse, they should 
frequently read them audibly : and by degrees would learn to 
read them well. And they would be much more likely to 
read them well, when the books were themselves delightful 
than when they went up to the master's desk, to " read their 



248 



INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. [ESSAY II. 



lessons." Learning " words and meanings," as the schoolboy 
calls it, is another of the modes in which much time is wasted. 
The conversation to which a young person listens, the books 
which he reads, are the best teachers of words and meanings. 
He cannot help learning the meaning of words if they fre- 
quently and familiarly occur ; and if they rarely occur, he will 
gain very little by learning columns of Entick. 

With this exclusion of some subjects of study, and altera- 
tion of the mode of pursuing others, a schoolboy's time would 
really VTe much more than doubled. Every year would prac- 
tically be expanded into two or three. Let us refer then to 
some of the subjects of Education which have been proposed. 

In teaching Geography, too little use is made of maps and 
too much of books. A boy will learn more by examining a 
good map and by listening to a few intelligible explanations, 
than by wearying himself with pages of geographical lessons. 
Lesson-learning is the bane of education. It disgusts and 
wearies young persons ; and, except with extreme watchful- 
ness on the part of the teacher, is almost sure to degenerate 
into learning words without ideas. It is not an easy thing 
for a child to learn half a dozen paragraphs full of proper 
names, describing by what mountains and seas half a dozen 
countries are bounded. Yet with much less labour, he might 
learn the facts more perfectly by his eye, and with less proba- 
bility of their passing from his memory. The lessons will 
not be remembered except as they convey ideas. 

To most if not to all young persons, Natural History is a 
delightful study. Zoology, if accompanied by good plates, 
conveys permanent and useful knowledge. Such a book as 
Wood's Zoography is a more valuable medium of education 
than three-fourths of the professed school-books in existence. 

History and Biography are, if it be not the fault of the 
teacher or his books, delightful also. Modern times should 
always be preferred ; partly because the knowledge they com- 
municate is more certain and more agreeable, and partly be- 
cause it bears an incomparably greater relation to the present 
condition of men ; and for that reason it is better adapted to 
prepare the young person for the part which he is to take in 
active life. If historical books even for the young possessed 
less of the character of mere chronicles of facts, and contained 
a few of those connecting and illustrating paragraphs which 
a man of philosophical mind knows how to introduce, History 
might become a powerful instrument in imparting sound prin- 
ciples to the mind, and thus in meliorating the general con- 
dition of society. Both Biography and History should be 



CHAP. XI.] 



INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 



249 



illustrated with good plates. The more we can teach through 
the eye the better. It is hardly necessary to add that a boy 
should not " learn lessons" in either. He should read these 
books, and means should afterwards be taken to ascertain 
whether he has read them to good purpose. 

There is, according to my views, no study that is more 
adapted to please and improve young persons than that of 
Natural Philosophy. When I was a schoolboy I attended a 
few lectures on the Air Pump, Galvanism, &c, and I value 
the knowledge which I gained in three evenings, more highly 
than any other that I gained at school in as many months. 
Whilst our children are poring over lessons which disgust 
them, we allow that magazine of wonders which heaven has 
stored up to lie unexplored and unnoticed. There are multi- 
tudes of young men and women who are considered respect- 
ably educated, who are yet wonderfully ignorant of the first 
principles of natural science. Many a boy who has spent 
years upon Latin, cannot tell how it comes to pass that water 
rises in a pump ; and would stare if he were told that the de- 
canters on the table were not colder than the baize they stand 
on. I would rather that my son were familiar with the sub- 
jects of Paley's Theology, that that he should surpass Eliza- 
beth Carter in a translation of Epictetus. 

Respecting the propriety of attempting to convey any know- 
ledge of Political Science, many readers will probably doubt. 
Yet why ? Is it not upon the goodness or badness of political 
institutions that much of the happiness or misery of mankind 
depends ? And what means are so likely to amend the bad, 
or to secure the continuance of the good, as the intelligent 
opinion of a people 1 We know that in all free states like 
our own, Public Opinion is powerful. What then can be 
more obviously true than that it should be made as just as we 
can ? Nor would it be to much purpose to reply, that every 
master will teach his own political creed, and only nurse up 
ignorant and angry squabbles. The same reason would apply 
against inculcating Religious Principles ; yet who thinks 
these principles should be neglected because there are many 
creeds ? Besides, one of the best means of educing political 
truth is by enquiry and discussion, and these are likely to be 
rationally promoted by making the Elements of Political 
knowledge a subject of education. To say the truth, these 
elements are not really very abstruse or remote Having once 
established the maxim — which no reasonable man disputes-*— 
that the proper purpose of government is to secure the hap- 
piness of the community, very little is wanted in applying 



250 



INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. [ESSAY II. 



the principle to particular questions but honest conscientious 
thought. The difficulties are occasioned not so much by the 
nature of the case, as by the interests and prejudices which 
habit and existing institutions introduce ; and how shall these 
interests and prejudices be so effectually prevented from in- 
fluencing the mind, as by the inculcation of simple truths be- 
fore young persons mix in the business of the world ? 

These are general suggestions : details are foreign to our 
purpose ; but from these general suggestions the intelligent 
parent will perceive the kind of education that is proposed. 
If such an education would convey to young persons some 
tolerable portion of " the knowledge and the spirit of their 
age and country," if it would tend to make them " useful, re- 
spectable, and happy" in the various relationships of life, the 
objects of Intellectual Education are, in the same degree, at- 
tained. So limited is the opportunity of the yoimg for acqui- 
ring knowledge in comparison with the extent of knowledge 
itself, that, upon some subjects, little more is to be effected 
during the years that are professedly devoted to education, 
than to induce the desire of information, and the habit of seek- 
ing it. A boy cannot be expected to acquire very extensive 
information respecting the application of the mechanical 
powers ; but if he sees the value and the pleasure of studying 
it, he may hereafter benefit his country and the world by his 
ingenuity. Or a boy cannot be expected to know more than 
the elements of chemistry ; yet this knowledge may in future 
enable him to add greatly to the comforts and conveniences 
of human life. 

There are indications of a revolution in the system of ed- 
ucation which will probably lead both to great and beneficial 
results. Science is evidently gaining ground upon the judg- 
ments and affections of the public. Elementary books of 
Science are indeed the familiar companions of young persons 
after they have left school. They lay aside tenses and parsing 
for " Conversations on Chemistry." This is, so far, as it 
should be ; and it would be better still if similar books had 
taken the place at school, of accents and quantities, and cases 
and genders, and lesson-learning by rote. This revolution is 
also indicated by the topics which are introduced into Me- 
chanics' Institutes. These Associations seem almost instinct- 
ively to prefer science to literature, simply as such. Per- 
haps it will be said that science is the branch of knowledge 
which is more peculiarly adapted to their employments in life. 
But the scientific information which an individual acquires, 
usually produces little immediate effect upon his mode of 



CHAP. XI.] 



INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 



251 



working. The carpenter cannot put up a staircase the better 
for attending a lecture on Chemistry. No : they prefer 
science because it is preferable : preferable, not for mechan- 
ics merely, but for man. It is of less consequence to Man 
to know what Horace wrote, or to be able to criticise the 
Greek Anthology, than to know by what laws the Deity regu- 
lates the operations of nature, and by what means those oper- 
ations are made subservient to the purposes of life. 

A consideration of the kind of knowledge which education 
should impart, is however but one division of the general sub- 
ject. The consideration of the best mode of imparting it, is 
another. Various reasons induce the writer to say little re- 
specting the last — of which reasons one is, that he does not 
possess information that satisfies his own mind ; and another, 
that it is not so immediately connected with the general pur- 
pose of the work. That great improvements have recently 
been made in the mode of conveying knowledge to large num- 
bers, is beyond dispute. Whether, or to what extent, these 
improvements are applicable to schools of twenty children or 
to families of three or four, experience will be likely to de- 
cide. With the prodigious power of giving publicity and ex- 
citing discussion which men now possess, the best systems 
are likely ultimately to prevail. 

One observation may, however, safely be made — that if two 
systems are proposed, each with apparently nearly equal claims, 
and one of which will be more pleasurable to the learner, 
that one is undoubtedly the best. That which a boy delights 
in he will learn ; and if the subjects of instruction were as 
delightful as they ought to be, and the mode of conveying were 
pleasurable too, there would be an immense addition to the 
stock of knowledge which a school boy acquires. We com- 
plain of the aversion of the young to learning, and the young 
complain of their weariness and disgust. It is in a great de- 
gree our own faults. Knowledge is delightful to the human 
mind ; but we may, if we please, select such kinds of know- 
ledge, and adopt such modes of imparting it, as shall make 
the whole system not delightful, but repulsive. This, to a 
great extent, we actually do. We may do the contrary if we 
will. 



There does not appear any reason why the education of 
women should differ in its essentials, from that of men. 
The education which is good for human nature is good for 
them. They are a part — and they ought to be in a much 
greater degree than they are, a part — of the effective contrib- 



252 



INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. [ESSAY II. 



utors to the welfare and intelligence of the human family. In 
intellectual as well as in other affairs, they ought to be fit 
helps to man. The preposterous absurdities of chivalrous 
times still exert a wretched influence over the character and 
allotment of women. Men are not polite but gallant ; they 
do not act towards women as to beings of kindred habits 
and character, as to beings who, like the other portion of man- 
kind, reason, and reflect, and judge, but as to beings who 
please, and whom men are bound to please. Essentially 
there is no kindness, no politeness in this ; but selfishness 
and insolence. He is the man of politeness who evinces his 
respect for the female mind. He is the man of insolence who 
tacitly says, when he enters into the society of women, that 
he needs not to bring his intellects with him. I do not mean to 
affirm that these persons intend insolence, or are conscious 
always of the real character of their habits : they think they 
are attentive and polite ; and habit has become so inveterate, 
that they really are not pleased if a woman by the vigour of 
her conversation, interrupts the pleasant trifling to which they 
are accustomed. Unhappily, a great number of women them- 
selves prefer this varnished and gilded contempt to solid re- 
spect. They would rather think themselves fascinating than 
respectable. They will not see, and very often they do not 
see, the practical insolence with which they are treated : yet 
what insolence is so great as that of half a dozen men, who, 
having been engaged in an intelligent conversation, suddenly 
exchange it for frivolity if ladies enter. 

For this unhappy state of intellectual intercourse, female 
education is in too great a degree adapted. A large class are 
taught less to think than to shine. If they glitter, it matters 
little whether it be the glitter of gilding or of gold. To be 
accomplished is of greater interest than to be sensible. It is 
of more consequence to this class to charm by the tones of a 
piano, than to delight and invigorate by intellectual conversa- 
tion. The effect is reciprocally bad. An absurd education 
disqualifies them for intellectual exertion, and that very dis- 
qualification perpetuates the degradation. I sa^ the degrada- 
tion, for the word is descriptive of the fact. A captive is not 
the less truly bound because his chains are made of silver 
and studded with rubies. If any community exhibits, in the 
collective character of its females, an exception to these re- 
marks, it is I think exhibited amongst the Society of Friends. 
Within the last twenty-five years the public have had many 
opportunities of observing the intellectual condition of quaker 
women. The public have not been dazzled : — who would 



CHAP. XI.] 



INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION". 



253 



wish it ? but they have seen intelligence, sound sense, con- 
siderateness, discretion. They have seen these qualities in 
a degree, and with an approach to universality of diffusion, 
that is not found in any other class of women as a class. 
There are, indeed, few or no authors amongst them. The 
quakers are not a writing people. If they were, there is no 
reason to doubt that the intelligence and discretion which are 
manifested by their women's actions and conversation, would 
be exhibited in their books. 

Unhappily some of the causes which have produced these 
qualities, are not easily brought into "operation by the public. 
One of the most efficient of these causes consists in that 
economy of the society, by which its women have an exten- 
sive and a separate share in the internal administration of its 
affairs. In the exercise of this administration they are al- 
most inevitably taught to think and to judge. The instrument 
is powerful ; but how shall that instrument be applied — 
where shall it be procured — by the rest of the public ? 

Not, however, that the intellectual education of these fe- 
males is what it ought to be, or what it might be. They, too, 
waste their hours over " grammar books," and " geography 
books, 1 ' and lesson books — over Latin sometimes, and Greek ; 
and, if the remark can be adventured on, over stitching and 
hemming too. Something must be amiss when a girl is kept 
two or three hours every day in acquiring the art of sewing. 
What that something is — whether it is practised like parsing 
because it is common, or whether more accurate proficiency is 
expected than reason would prescribe, I presume not to de- 
termine ; but it may safely be concluded, that if a portion 
equal to a fourth or a third part of those years which are af- 
forded to that mighty subject, the education of the human 
mind, is devoted to the acquisition of one manual art like this 
— more is devoted than any one who reasons upon the sub- 
ject can justify. 

If then we were wise enough to regard women, and if wo- 
men were wise enough to regard themselves, with that real 
practical respect to which they are entitled, and if the edu- 
cation they received was such as that respect would dictate, 
we might hereafter have occasion to say, not as it is now 
said, that " in England women are queens," but something 
higher and greater ; we might say that in every thing social, 
intellectual, and religious, they were fit to co-operate with man, 
and to cheer and assist him in his endeavours to promote his 
own happiness, and the happiness of his family, his country, 
and the world. 

22 



254 



MORAL EDUCATION. 



[essay II 



CHAPTER XII. 

MORAL EDUCATION. 

Union of moral principle with the affections — Society — Morality of the 
Ancient Classics — The supply of motives to virtue — Conscience — Sub- 
jugation of the Will — Knowledge of our own minds — Offices of public 
worship. 

To a good Moral Education, two things are necessary : 
That the young should receive information respecting what is 
right and what is wrong ; and, That they should be furnished 
with motives to adhere to what is right. We should commu- 
cate moral Knowledge and moral dispositions. 

I. In the endeavour to attain these ends, there is one great 
pervading difficulty, consisting in the imperfection and impu- 
rity of the actual moral condition of mankind. Without re- 
ferring at present to that moral guidance with which all men, 
however circumstanced, are furnished,* it is evident that much 
of the practical moral education which an individual receives, 
is acquired by habit, and from the actions, opinions, and gen- 
eral example of those around him. It is thus that, to a great 
extent, he acquires his moral education. He adopts the no- 
tions of others, acquires insensibly a similar set of principles, 
and forms to himself a similar scale of right and wrong. It 
is manifest that the learner in such a school will often be 
taught amiss. Yet how can we prevent him from being so 
taught ? or what system of Moral Education is likely to avail 
in opposition to the contagion of example and the influence 
of notions insensibly, yet constantly instilled ? It is to little 
purpose to take a boy every morning into a closet, and there 
teach him moral and religious truths for an hour, if so soon 
as the hour is expired, he is left for the remainder of the day 
in circumstances in which these truths are not recommended 
by any living examples. 

One of the first and greatest requisites, therefore, in Moral 
Education, is a situation in which the knowledge and the 
practice of morality is inculcated by the habitually virtuous 
conduct of others. The boy who is placed in such a situa- 
tion is in an efficient moral school, though he may never hear 
delivered formal rules of conduct : so that, if parents should 
ask how they may best give their child a moral education, I 
answer, Be virtuous yourselves. 

* See Essay I., c. vi. 



CHAP. XII.] 



MORAL EDUCATION. 



255 



The young, however, are unavoidably subjected to bad ex- 
ample as to good : many who may see consistent practical 
lessons of virtue in their parents' parlours, must see much 
that is contrary elsewhere ; and we must, if we can, so rec- 
tify the moral perceptions and invigorate the moral disposi- 
tions, that the mind shall effectually resist the insinuation of 
evil. 

Religion is the basis of Morality. He that would impart 
moral knowledge must begin by imparting a knowledge of 
God. We are not advocates of formal instruction — of lesson 
learning — in moral any more than inteUectual education. Not 
that we affirm it is undesirable to make a young person com- 
mit to memory maxims of religious truth and moral duty. 
These things may be right but they are not the really efficient 
means of forming the moral character of the young. These 
maxims should recommend themselves to the judgment and 
affections, and this can hardly be hoped whilst they are pre- 
sented only in a didactic and insulated form to the mind. It 
is one of the characteristics of the times, that there is a pro- 
digious increase of books that are calculated to benefit whilst 
they delight the young. These are effective instruments in 
teaching morality. A simple narrative, {of facts, if it be pos- 
sible,) in which integrity of principle and purity of conduct 
are recommended to the affections as well as to the judgment 
— without affectation, or improbabilities, or factitious senti- 
ment, is likely to effect substantial good. And if these as- 
sociations are judiciously renewed, the good is likely to be 
permanent as well as substantial. It is not a light task to 
write such books, nor to select them. Authors colour their 
pictures too highly. They must indeed interest the young, 
or they will not be read with pleasure : but the anxiety to 
give interest is too great, and the effects may be expected to 
diminish as the narrative recedes from congeniality to the 
actual condition of mankind. 

A judicious parent will often find that the moral culture of 
the child may be promoted without seeming to have the ob- 
ject in view. There are many opportunities which present 
themselves for associating virtue with his affections — for 
throwing in amongst the accumulating mass of mental habits, 
principles of rectitude which shall pervade and meliorate the 
whole. 

As the mind acquires an increased capacity of judging, I 
would offer to the young person a sound exhibition, if such 
can be found, of the Principles of Morality. He should 
know, with as great distinctness as possible, not only his 



256 



MORAL EDUCATION. 



[essay II. 



duty, but the reasons of it. It has very unfortunately hap- 
pened that those who have professed to deliver the princi- 
ples of morality, have commonly intermingled error with 
truth, or have set out with propositions fundamentally un- 
sound. These books effect, it is probable, more injury than 
benefit. Their truths, for they contain truths, are frequently de- 
duced from fallacious premises — from premises from which it is 
equally easy to deduce errors. The fallacies of the Moral Phi- 
losophy of Paley are now in part detected by the public : there 
was a time when his opinions were regarded as more nearly 
oracular than now ; and at that time and up to the present 
time, the book has effectually confused the moral notions of 
multitudes of readers. If the reader thinks that the principles 
which have been proposed in the present Essays are just, he 
might derive some assistance from them in conducting the 
moral education of his elder children. 

There is negative as well as positive Education — some 
things to avoid as well as some to do. Of the things which 
are to be avoided, the most obvious is unfit society for the 
young. If a boy mixes without restraint in whatever society 
he pleases, his education will in general be practically bad ; 
because the world in general is bad : its moral condition is 
below the medium between perfect purity and utter depra- 
vation. Nevertheless, he must at some period mix in society 
with almost all sorts of men, and therefore he must be pre- 
pared for it. Yery young children should be excluded if pos- 
sible from all unfit association, because they acquire habits; 
before they possess a sufficiency of counteracting principle. 
But if a parent has, within his own house, sufficiently en- 
deavoured to confirm and invigorate the moral character of his 
child, it were worse than fruitless to endeavour to retain him 
in the seclusion of a monk. He should feel the necessity 
and acquire the power of resisting temptation, by being sub- 
jected, gradually subjected, to that temptation which must 
one day be presented to him. In the endlessly diversified 
circumstances of families, no suggestion of prudence will be 
applicable to all ; but if a parent is conscious that the moral 
tendency of his domestic associations is good, it will probably 
be wise to send his children to day-schools rather than to 
send them wholly from his family. Schools, as moral instru- 
ments, contain much both of good and evil : perhaps no means 
will be more effectual in securing much of the good and avoid- 
ing much of the evil, than that of allowing his children to 
spend their "evenings and early mornings at home. 

In ruminating upon Moral Education, we cannot, at least in 



v 



CHAP. XII.] 



MORAL EDUCATION. 



257 



this age of reading, disregard the influence of books. That 
a young person should not read every book is plain. No dis- 
crimination can be attempted here ; but it may be observed 
that the best species of discrimination is that which is sup- 
plied by a rectified condition of the mind itself. The best 
species of prohibition is not that which a parent pronounces, 
but that which is pronounced by purified tastes and inclina- 
tions in the mind of the young. Not that the parent or tutor 
can expect that all or many of his children will adequately 
make this judicious discrimination ; but if he cannot do every 
thing he can do much. There are many persons whom a 
contemptible or vicious book disgusts, notwithstanding the 
fascinations which it may contain. This disgust is the result 
of education in a large sense ; and some portion of this dis- 
gust and of the discrimination which results from it, may be 
induced into the mind of a boy by having made him famil- 
iar with superior productions. He who is accustomed to 
good society, feels little temptation to join in the vociferations 
of an alehouse. 

And here it appears necessary to advert to the moral ten- 
dency of studying, without selection, the ancient classics. 
If there are objections to the study resulting from this ten- 
dency, they are to be superadded to those whieh were stated 
in the last chapter on intellectual grounds ; and both united 
will present motives to hesitation on the part of a parent 
which he cannot, with any propriety, disregard. The mode 
in which the Avritings of the Greek and Latin authors oper- 
ate, is not an ordinary mode. We do not approach them as 
we approach ordinary books, but with a sort of habitual admi- 
ration, which makes their influence, whatever be its nature, 
peculiarly strong. That admiration would be powerful alike 
for good or for evil. Whether the tendency be good or evil, 
the admiration will make it great. 

Now, previous to enquiring what the positive ill tendency 
of these writings is — what is not their tendency ? They are 
Pagan books for Christian children. They neither inculcate 
Christianity, nor Christian dispositions, nor the love of 
Christianity. But their tendency is not negative merely. 
They do inculcate that which is adverse to Christianity and 
to Christian dispositions. They set up, as exalted virtues, 
that which our own religion never countenanced, if it has not 
specifically condemned. They censure as faults dispositions 
which our own religion enjoins, or dispositions so similar that 
the young will not discriminate between them. If we en- 
thusiastically admire these works, who will pretend that we 

22* 



258 



MORAL EDUCATION. 



[essay II. 



shall not admire the moral qualities which they applaud? 
Who will pretend that the mind of a young person accurately 
adjusts his admiration to those subjects only which Chris- 
tianity approves ? No : we admire them as a whole ; not 
perhaps every sentence or every sentiment, but we admire 
their general spirit and character. In a word, we admire 
that which our own religion teaches us not to imitate. And 
what makes the effect the more intense is, that we do this at 
the period of life when we are every day acquiring our moral 
notions. We mingle them up with our early associations 
respecting right and wrong — with associations which com- 
monly extend their influence over the remainder of life.* 

A very able Essay, which obtained the Norrisian Medal at 
Cambridge for 1825, forcibly illustrates these propositions; 
and the illustration is so much the more valuable, because it 
appears to have been undesigned. The title is, " No valid 
argument can be drawn from the incredulity of the Heathen 
Philosophers against the truth of the Christian religion."! 
The object of the work is to show, by a reference to their 
writings, that the general system of their opinions, feelings, 
prejudices, principles, and conduct, was utterly incongruous 
with Christianity ; and that, in consequence of these princi- 
ples, &c, they actually did reject the religion. This is shown 
with great clearness of evidence ; it is shown that a class of 
men, who thought and wrote as these Philosophers thought 
and wrote, would be extremely indisposed to adopt the re- 
ligion and morality which Christ had introduced. Now, this 
appears to me to be conclusive of the question as to the pres- 
ent tendency of their writings. If the principles and pre- 
judices of these persons indisposed them to the acceptance 
of Christianity, those prejudices and principles will indispose 
the man who admires and imbibes them in the present day. 
Not that they will now produce the effect in the same degree. 
We are now surrounded with many other media by which opin- 
ions and principles are induced, and these are frequently in- 
fluenced by the spirit of Christianity. The study and the 
admiration of these writings may not therefore be expected 
to make men absolutely reject Christianity, but to indispose 
them, in a greater or less degree, for the hearty acceptance 
of Christian principles as their rules of conduct. 

Propositions have been made to supply young persons with 

* "All education which inculcates Christian Opinions with Pagan 
Tastes, awakens conscience but to tamper with it." Schimmelpenninck : 
Biblical Fragments'. 

t By James Amiraux Jeremie. 



CHAP. XII.] 



MORAL EDUCATION. 



259 



selected ancient authors, or perhaps with editions in which 
exceptionable passages are expunged. I do not think that 
this will greatly avail. It is not, I think, the broad indecen- 
cies of Ovid, nor any other insulated class of sentiments or 
descriptions, that effects the great mischief ; it is the perva- 
ding spirit and tenor of the whole — a spirit and tenor from 
which Christianity is not only excluded, but which is actually 
and greatly adverse to Christianity. There is indeed one con- 
siderable benefit that is likely to result from such a selection, 
and from expunging particular passages. Boys in ordinary 
schools do not learn enough of the classics to acquire much 
of their general moral spirit, but they acquire enough to be 
influenced, and injuriously influenced, by being familiar with 
licentious language ; and, at any rate, he essentially subserves 
the interests of morality, who diminishes the power of op- 
posing influences though he cannot wholly destroy it. 

Finally, the mode in which Intellectual Education, gener- 
ally, is acquired, may be made either an auxiliary of Moral 
Education or the contrary. A young person may store his 
mind with literature and science, and together, with the ac- 
quisition, either corrupt his principles, or amend and invigor- 
ate them. The world is so abundantly supplied with the 
means of knowledge — there are so many paths to the desired 
temple, that we may choose our own and yet arrive at it. He 
that thinks he cannot possess sufficient knowledge without 
plucking fruit of unhallowed trees, surely does not know how 
boundless is the variety and number of those which bear 
wholesome fruit. He cannot indeed know every thing with- 
out studying the bad ; which, however, is no more to be re- 
commended in literature than in life. A man cannot know 
all the varieties of human society without taking up his abode 
with felons and cannibals. 

II. But, in reality, the second division of Moral Educa- 
tion is the more important of the two — the supply of motives 
to adhere to what is right. Our great deficiency is not in 
knowledge but in obedience. Of the offences winch an indi- 
vidual commits against the Moral Law, the great majority are 
committed in the consciousness that he is doing wrong. Moral 
Education therefore should be directed, not so much to in- 
forming the young what they ought to do, as to inducing those 
moral dispositions and principles which will make them ad- 
here to what they know to be right. 

The human mind, of itself, is in a state something like that 
of men in a state of nature, where separate and conflicting 
desires and motives are not restrained by any acknowledged 



260 



MORAL EDUCATION. 



[ESSAY II. 



head. Government, as it is necessary to society, is neces- 
sary in the individual mind. To the internal community of 
the heart the great question is, Who shall be the legislator 1 
Who shall regulate and restrain the passions and affections ? 
Who shall command and direct the conduct 1 — To these Ques- 
tions the breast of every man supplies him with an answer. 
He knows, because he feels that there is a rightful legislator 
in his own heart : he knows, because he feels, that he ought 
to obey it. 

By whatever designation the reader may think it fit to indi- 
cate this legislator, whether he calls it the law written in the 
heart, or moral sense, or moral instinct, or conscience, we ar- 
rive at one practical truth at last ; that to the moral legislation 
which does actually subsist in the human mind, it is right that 
the individual should conform his conduct. 

The great point then is, to induce him to do this — to in- 
duce him, when inclination and this law are at variance, to 
sacrifice the inclination to the law ; and for this purpose it 
appears proper, first to impress him with a high, that is, with 
an accurate estimate of the authority of the law itself. We 
have seen that this law embraces an actual expression of the 
Will of God ; and we have seen that, even although the con- 
science may not always be adequately enlightened, it never- 
theless constitutes to the individual an authoritative law. It is 
to the conscientious internal apprehension of rectitude that we 
should conform our conduct. Such appears to be the Will of 
God. 

It should therefore be especially inculcated, that the dic- 
tate of conscience is never to be sacrificed ; that whatever 
may be the consequences of conforming to it, they are to be 
ventured. Obedience is to be unconditional — no questions 
about the utility of the law — no computations qf the conse- 
quences of obedience — no presuming upon the lenity of the 
divine government. " It is important so to regulate the un- 
derstanding and imagination of the young, that they may be 
prepared to obey, even where they do not see the reasons of 
the commands of God." " We should certainly endeavour 
where we can, to show them the reasons of the divine com- 
mands, and this more and more as their understandings gain 
strength ; but let it be obvious to them that we do ourselves 
consider it as quite sufficient if God has commanded us to do 
or to avoid any thing."* 

Obedience to this internal legislator is not, like obedience 
to civil government, enforced. The law is promulgated, but 
* Carpenter : Principles of Education. 



CHAP. XII.] 



MORAL EDUCATION. 



261 



the passions and inclinations can refuse obedience if they 
will. Penalties and rewards are indeed annexed ; but he 
who braves the penalty, and disregards the reward, may con- 
tinue to violate the law. Obedience therefore must be volun- 
tary, and hence the paramount importance, in moral education, 
of habitually subjecting the will. " Parents," says Hartley, 
" should labour, from the earliest dawnings of understanding 
and desire, to check the growing obstinacy of the will, curb 
all sallies of passion, impress the deepest, most amiable, reve- 
rential, and awful impressions of God, a future state, and all 
sacred things." — " Religious persons in all periods, who have 
possessed the light of revelation, have in a particular manner 
been sensible that the habit of self-control lies at the founda- 
tion of moral worth."* There is nothing mean or mean- 
spirited in this. It is magnanimous in philosophy as it is 
right in morals. It is the subjugation of the lower qualities 
of our nature to wisdom and to goodness. 

The subjugation of the will to the dictates of a higher law, 
must be endeavoured, if we would succeed, almost in infancy 
and in very little things ; from the earliest dawnings, as Hart- 
ley says, of understanding and desire. Children must first 
obey their parents, and those who have the care of them. 
The habit of sacrificing the will to another judgment being 
thus acquired, the mind is prepared to sacrifice the will to the 
judgment pronounced within itself. Show, in every practica- 
ble case, why you cross the inclinations of a child. Let 
obedience be as little blind as it may be. It is a great failing 
of some parents that they will not descend from the impera- 
tive mood, and that they seem to think it a derogation from 
their authority to place their orders upon any other foundation 
than their wills. But if the child sees — and children are 
wonderfully i^uick-sighted in such things — if the child sees 
that the will is that which governs his parent, how shall he 
efficiently learn that the will should not govern himself? 

The internal'law carries with it the voucher of its own rea- 
sonableness. A person does not need to be told that it is 
proper and right to obey that law. The perception of this 
rectitude and propriety is coincident with the dictates them- 
selves. Let the parent, then, very frequently refer his son 
and his daughter to their own minds ; let him teach them to 
seek for instruction there. There are dangers on every hand, 
and dangers even here. The parent must refer them, if it be 
possible, not merely to conscience, but to enlightened con- 
science. He must unite the two branches of Moral Educa- 
* Carpenter: Principles of Education. 



262 



MORAL EDUCATION. 



[ESSAY II. 



tion, and communicate the knowledge whilst he endeavours 
to induce the practice of morality. Without this, his children 
may obey their consciences, and yet be in error, and perhaps 
in fanaticism. With it, he may hope that their conduct will 
be both conscientious, and pure, and right. Nevertheless, an 
habitual reference to the internal law is the great, the primary 
concern ; for the great majority of a man's moral perceptions 
are accordant with Truth. 

There is one consequence attendant upon this habitual re- 
ference to the internal law, which is highly beneficial to the 
moral character. It leads us to fulfil the wise instruction of 
antiquity, Know thyself. It makes us look within ourselves ; 
it brings us acquainted with the little and busy world that is 
within us, with its many inhabitants and their dispositions, 
and with their tendencies to evil or to good. This is valuable 
knowledge ; and knowledge for want of which, it may be 
feared, the virtue of many has been wrecked in the hour of 
tempest. A man's enemies are those of his own household ; 
and if he does not know their insiduousness and their strength, 
if he does not know upon what to depend for assistance, nor 
where is the probable point of attack, it is not likely that he 
will efficiently resist. Such a man is in the situation of the 
governor of an unprepared and surprised city. He knows 
not to whom to apply for effectual help, and finds perhaps that 
those whom he has loved and trusted are the first to desert 
or betray him. He feebly resists, soon capitulates, and at last 
scarcely knows why he did not make a successful defence. 

It is to be regretted that, in the moral education which com- 
monly obtains, whether formal or incidental, there is little that 
is calculated to produce this acquaintance with our own minds ; 
little that refers us to ourselves, and much, very much, that 
calls and sends us away. Of many it is not too much to say, 
that they receive almost no moral culture. The plant of vir- 
tue is suffered to grow as a tree grows in a forest, and takes 
its chance of storm or sunshine. This, which is good for 
oaks and pines, is not good for man. The general atmosphere 
around him is infected, and the juices of the moral plant are 
often themselves unhealthy. 

In the nursery, formularies and creeds are taught ; but this 
does not refer the child to its own mind. Indeed, unless a 
wakeful solicitude is maintained by those who teach, the ten- 
dency is the reverse, The mind is kept from habits of intro- 
version, even in the offices of religion, by practically directing 
its attention to the tongue. " Many, it is to be feared, ima- 
gine that they are giving their children religious principles, 



CHAP. XII.] 



MORAL EDUCATION. 



263 



when they are only teaching them religious truths." You 
cannot impart moral education as you teach a child to spell. 

From the nursery a boy is sent to school. He spends six 
or eight hours of the day in the school-room, and the remainder 
is employed in the sports of boyhood. Once, or it may be 
twice, in the day he repeats a form of prayer, and on one day 
in the week he goes to church. There is very little in all 
this to make him acquainted with the internal community ; 
and habit, if nothing else, calls his reflections away. 

From school or from college the business of life is begun. 
It can require no argument to show, that the ordinary pursuits 
of life have little tendency to direct a man's meditations to 
the moral condition of his own mind, or that they have much 
tendency to employ them upon other and very different things. 

Nay. even the offices of public devotion have almost a ten- 
dency to keep the mind without itself. What if we say that 
the self-contemplation which even natural religion is likely to 
produce, is obstructed by the forms of Christian worship? 
" The transitions from one office of devotion to another, are 
contrived, like scenes in the drama, to supply the mind with 
a succession of diversified engagements."* This supply of 
diversified engagements, whatever may be its value in other 
respects, has evidently the tendency of which we speak. It 
is not designed to supply, and it does not supply, the opportu- 
nity for calmness of recollection. A man must abstract him- 
self from the external service if he would investigate the 
character and dispositions of the inmates of his own breast. 
Even the architecture and decoration of churches come in 
aid of the general tendency. They make the eye an auxiliary 
of the ear, and both keep the mind at a distance from those 
concerns which are peculiarly its own ; from contemplating 
its own weaknesses and wants ; and from applying to God for 
that peculiar help, which perhaps itself only needs, and which 
God only can impart. So little are the course of education 
and the subsequent engagements of life calculated to foster 
this great auxiliary of moral character. It is difficult, in the 
wide world, to foster it as much as is needful. Nothing but 
wakeful solicitude on the part of the parent can be expected 
sufficiently to direct the mind within ; whilst the general ten- 
dency of our associations and habits is to keep it without. 
Let him, however, do what he can. The habitual reference 
to the dictates of conscience may be promoted in the very 
young mind. This habit, like others, becomes strong by ex- 
ercise. He that is faithful in little things is intrusted with 
* Paley, p. 3, b. 5, c. 5. 



264 



MORAL EDUCATION. 



[ESSAY II. 



more ; and this is true in respect of knowledge as in respect 
of other departments of the Christian life. Fidelity of obe- 
dience is commonly succeeded by increase of light; and 
every act of obedience and every addition to knowledge fur- 
nishes new and still stronger inducements to persevere in the 
same course. Acquaintance with ourselves is the inseparable 
attendant of this course. We know the character and dispo- 
sitions of our own inmates by frequent association with them : 
and if this fidelity to the internal law, and consequent know- 
ledge of the internal world, be acquired in early life, the pa- 
rent may reasonably hope that it will never wholly lose its 
efficiency amidst the bustle and anxieties of the world. 

Undoubtedly, this most efficient security of moral character 
is not likely fully to operate during the continuance of the 
present state of society and of its institutions. It is I believe 
true, that the practice of morality is most complete amongst 
those persons who peculiarly recommend a reference to the 
internal law, and whose institutions, religious and social, are 
congruous with the habit of this reference. Their history 
exhibits a more unshaken adherence to that which they con- 
ceived to be right — fewer sacrifices of conscience to interest 
or the dread of suffering — less of trimming between conflicting 
motives — more, in a word, of adherence to rectitude without 
regard to consequences. We have seen that such persons 
are likely to form accurate views of rectitude ; but whether 
they be accurate or not, does not affect the value of their 
moral education as securing fidelity to the degree of knowledge 
which they possess. It is of more consequence to adhere 
steadily to conscience though it may not be perfectly en- 
lightened, than to possess perfect knowledge without consis- 
tency of obedience. But in reality they who obey most, know 
most ; and we say that the general testimony of experience 
is, that those persons exhibit the most unyielding fidelity to 
the Moral Law whose Moral Education has peculiarly directed 
them to the law written in the heart. 



CHAP. XIII.] EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 



265 



CHAPTER XIII. 

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 

Advantages of extended Education — Infant Schools — Habits of enquiry. 

Whether the Education of those who are not able to pay 
for educating themselves ought to be a private or a national 
charge, it is not our present business to discuss. It is in this 
country, at least, left to the voluntary benevolence of individ- 
uals, and this "consideration may apologize for a brief reference 
to it here. 

It is not long since it was a question whether the poor 
should be educated or not. That time is past, and it may be 
hoped the time will soon be passed when it shall be a ques- 
tion, To what extent 1 — that the time will soon arrive when it 
will be agreed that no limit needs to be assigned to the edu- 
cation of the poor, but that which is assigned by their own 
necessities, or which ought to be assigned to the education 
of all men. There appears no more reason for excluding a 
poor man from the fields of knowledge, than for preventing 
him from using his eyes. The mental and the visual powers 
were alike given to be employed. A man should, indeed, 
" shut his eyes from seeing evil" but whatever reason there 
is for letting him see all that is beautiful, and excellent, and 
innocent in nature and in art, there is the same for enabling 
his mind to expatiate in the fields of knowledge. 

The objections which are urged against this extended edu- 
cation, are of the same kind as those which were urged against 
any education. They insist upon the probability of abuse. 
It was said, They who can write may forge ; they who can 
read may read what is pernicious. The answer was, or it 
might have been — They who can hear, may hear profaneness 
and learn it ; they who can see, may see bad examples and 
follow them : — but are we therefore to stop our ears and put 
out our eyes ? — It is now said, that if you give extended edu- 
cation to the poor, you will elevate them above their stations ; 
that a critic would not drive a wheelbarrow, and that a philos- 
opher would not shoe horses, or weave cloth. But these con- 
sequences are without the limits of possibility ; because the 
question for a poor man is, whether he shall perform such 
offices or starve : and surely it will not be pretended that 
hungry men would rather criticise than eat. Science and 
literature would not solicit a poor man from his labour more 

23 



266 



EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 



[essay II. 



irresistibly than ease and pleasure do now ; yet in spite of 
these solicitations what is the fact ? That the poor man works 
for his bread. This is the inevitable result. 

It is not the positive but the relative amount of knowledge 
that elevates a man above his station in society. It is not 
because he knows much, but because he knows more than his 
fellows. Educate all, and none will fancy that he is superior 
to his neighbours. Besides, we assign to the possession of 
knowledge, effects which are produced rather by habits of 
life. Ease and comparative leisure are commonly attendant 
upon extensive knowledge, and leisure and ease disqualify 
men for the laborious occupations much more than the know- 
ledge itself. 

There are some collateral advantages of an extended edu- 
cation* of the people, which are of much importance. It has 
been observed that if the French had been an educated people, 
many of the atrocities of their Revolution would never have 
happened, and I believe it. Furious mobs are composed, not 
of enlightened but of unenlightened men — of men in whom 
the passions are dominant over the judgment, because the 
judgment has not been exercised, and informed, and habitu- 
ated to direct the conduct. A factious declaimer can much less 
easily influence a number of men who acquired at school the 
rudiments of knowledge, and who have subsequently devoted 
their leisure to a Mechanic's Institute, than a multitude who 
cannot write or read, and who have never practised reasoning 
and considerate thought. And as the Education of a People 
prevents political evil, it effects political good. Despotic 
rulers well know that knowledge is inimical to their power. 
This simple fact is a sufficient reason, to a good and wise 
man, to approve knowledge and extend it. The attention to 
public institutions and public measures which is inseparable, 
from an educated population, is a great good. We all know 
that the human heart is such, that the possession of power is 
commonly attended with a desire to increase it, even in oppo- 
sition to the general weal. It is acknowledged that a check 
is needed, and no check is either so efficient or so safe as 
that of a watchful and intelligent public mind : so watchful, 
that it is prompt to discover and to expose what is amiss ; so 
intelligent, that it is able to form rational judgments respecting 
the nature and the means of amendment. In all public insti- 
tutions there exists, and it is happy that there does exist, a 
sort of vis inertia which habitually resists change. This, 
which is beneficial as a general tendency, is often injurious 
from its excess ; the state of public institutions almost through- 



CHAP. XIII.] EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 



267 



out the world, bears sufficient testimony to the truth, that they 
need alteration and amendment faster than they receive it — 
that the internal resistance of change is greater than is good 
for man. Unhappily, the ordinary way in which a people 
have endeavoured to amend their institutions, has been by 
some mode of violence. If you ask when a nation acquired 
a greater degree of freedom, you are referred to some era of 
revolution and probably of blood. These are not proper, cer- 
tainly they are not Christian, remedies for the disease. It is 
becoming an undisputed proposition, that no bad institution 
can permanently stand against the distinct Opinion of a People. 
This opinion is likely to be universal, and to be intelligent 
only amongst an enlightened community. Now that reforma- 
tion of public institutions which results from public opinion, is 
the very best in kind, and is likely to be the best in its mode : — 
in its kind, because public opinion is the proper measure of the 
needed alteration ; and in its mode, because alterations which 
result from such a cause, are likely to be temperately made. 

It may be feared that some persons object to an extended 
education of the people on these very grounds which we pro- 
pose as recommendations ; that they regard the tendency of 
education to produce examination, and, if need be, alteration 
of established institutions, as a reason for withholding it from 
the poor. To these, it is a sufficient answer, that if increase 
of knowledge and habits of investigation tend to alter any es- 
tablished institution, it is fit that it should be altered. There 
appears no means of avoiding this conclusion, unless it can 
be shown that increase of knowledge is usually attended with 
depravation of principle, and that in proportion as the judg- 
ment is exercised it decides amiss. 

Generally, that intellectual education is good for a poor man 
which is good for his richer neighbours : in other words, that 
is good for the poor which is good for man. There may be 
exceptions to the general rule ; but he who is disposed to 
doubt the fitness of a rich man's education for the poor, will do 
well to consider first whether the rich man's education is fit 
for himself. The children of persons of property can un- 
doubtedly learn much more than those of a labourer, and the 
labourer must select from the rich man's system a part only 
for his own child. But this does not affect the general con- 
clusion. The parts which he ought to select are precisely 
those parts which are most necessary and beneficial to the rich. 

Great as have been the improvements in the methods of 
conveying knowledge to the poor, there is reason to think 
that they will be yet greater. Some useful suggestions for 



268 



EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. [ESSAY II. 



the instruction of older children may I think be obtained from 
the systems in Infant Schools. In a well conducted infant 
school, children acquire much knowledge, and they acquire it 
with delight. This delight is of extreme importance : perhaps 
it may safely be concluded, respecting all innocent knowledge, 
that if a child acquired it with pleasure he is well taught. It 
is worthy observation, that in the infant system, lesson-learn- 
ing is nearly or wholly excluded. It is not to be expected 
that in the time which is devoted professedly to education by 
the children of the poor, much extent of knowledge can be. 
acquired ; but something may be acquired which is of much 
more consequence than mere school-learning — the love and 
the habits of enquiry. If education be so- conducted that it 
is a positive pleasure to a boy to learn, there is little doubt 
that this love and habit will be induced. Here is the great 
advantage of early intellectual culture. The busiest have 
some leisure, leisure which they may employ ill or well ; and 
that they will employ it well may reasonably be expected 
when knowledge is thus attractive for its own sake. That 
this effect is in a considerable degree actually produced, is 
indicated by the improved character of the books which poor 
men read, and in the prodigious increase in the number of 
those books. The supply and demand are correspondent. 
Almost every year produces books for the labouring classes 
of a higher intellectual order than the last. A journeyman 
in our days can understand and relish a work which would 
have been like Arabic to his grandfather. 

Of moral education we say nothing here, except that the 
principles which are applicable to other classes of mankind 
are obviously applicable to the poor. With respect to the in- 
culcation of peculiar religious opinions on the children who 
attend schools voluntarily supported, there is manifestly the 
same reason for inculcating them in this case as for teaching 
them at all. This supposes that the supporters of the school 
are not themselves divided in their religious opinions. If they 
are, and if the adherents to no one creed are able to support 
a school of their own, there appears no ground upon which 
they can rightly refuse to support a school in which no reli- 
gious peculiarities are taught. It is better that intellectual 
knowledge, together with imperfect religious principles should 
be communicated, than that children should remain in dark- 
ness. There is indeed some reason to suspect the genuine- 
ness of that man's philanthropy, who refuses to impart any 
knowledge to his neighbours because he cannot, at the same 
time, teach* them his own creed. 



CHAP. XIV.] 



AMUSEMENTS. 



269 



CHAPTER XIV. 

AMUSEMENTS. 

The Stage — Religious Amusements — Masquerades — Field Sports — The 
Turf — Boxing — Wrestling — Opinions of Posterity — Popular Amuse- 
ments needless. 

It is a remarkable circumstance, that in almost all Chris- 
tian countries many of the public and popular amusements 
have been regarded as objectionable by the more sober and 
conscientious part of the community. This opinion could 
scarcely have been general unless it had been just : yet why 
should a people prefer amusements of which good men feel 
themselves compelled to disapprove ? Is it because no pub- 
lic recreation can be devised of which the evil is not greater 
than the good ? or because the inclinations of most men are 
such, that if it were devised, they would not enjoy it 1 . It 
may be feared that the desires which are seeking for gratifi- 
cation are not themselves pure ; and pure pleasures are not 
congenial to impure minds. The real cause of the objection- 
able nature of many popular diversions is to be sought in the 
want of virtue in the people. 

Amusement is confessedly a subordinate concern in life. 
It is neither the principal nor amongst the principal objects 
of proper solicitude. No reasonable man sacrifices the more 
important thing to the less, and that a man's religious and 
moral condition is of incomparably greater importance than 
his diversion, is sufficiently plain. In estimating the propri- 
ety or rather the lawfulness of a given amusement, it may 
safely be laid down, That none is lawful of which the aggre- 
gate consequences are injurious to morals : — nor, if its effects 
upon the immediate agents are, in general, morally bad : — nor 
if it occasions needless pain and misery to men or to ani- 
mals : — nor, lastly, if it occupies much time or is attended 
with much expense. — Respecting all amusements, the ques- 
tion is not whether in their simple or theoretical character, 
they are defensible, but whether they are defensible in their 
actually existing state. 

The Drama. — So that if a person, by way of showing the 
propriety of theatrical exhibitions, should ask whether there 
was any harm in a man's repeating a composition before 
others and accompanying it with appropriate gestures — he 
would ask a very foolish question : because he would ask a 

23* 



270 



AMUSEMENTS. 



[essay II. 



question that possesses little or no relevancy to the subject. — 
What are the ordinary effects of the stage upon those who 
act on it 1 One and one only answer can be given — that 
whatever happy exceptions there may be, the effect is bad ; 
— that the moral and religious character of actors is lower 
than that of persons in other professions. " It is an undeni- 
able fact, for the truth of which we may safely appeal to every 
age and nation, that the situation of the performers, particu- 
larly of those of the female sex, is remarkably unfavourable 
to the maintenance and growth of the religious and moral 
principle, and of course highly dangerous to their eternal in- 
terests."* 

Therefore, if I take my seat in the theatre, I have paid 
three or five shillings as an inducement to a number of per- 
sons to subject their principles to extreme danger ; — and the 
defence which I make is, that I am amused by it. Now, we 
affirm that this defence is invalid ; that it is a defence which 
reason pronounces to be absurd, and morality to be vicious. 
Yet I have no other to make ; it is the sum total of my justi- 
fication. 

But this, which is sufficient to decide the morality of the 
question, is not the only nor the chief part of the evil. The 
evil which is suffered by performers may be more intense, 
but upon spectators and others it is more extended. The night 
of a play is the harvest time of iniquity, where the profligate 
and the sensual put in their sickles and reap. It is to no 
purpose to say that a man may go to a theatre or parade a sa- 
loon without taking part in the surrounding licentiousness. All 
who are there promote the licentiousness, for if none were 
there, there would be no licentiousness ; that is to say, if none 
purchased tickets there would be neither actors to be depraved 
nor dramas to vitiate, nor saloons to degrade and corrupt, and 
shock us. — The whole question of the lawfulness of the dra- 
matic amusements, as they are ordinarily conducted, is resolv- 
ed into a very simple thing : — After the doors on any given 
night are closed, have the virtuous or the vicious dispositions 
of the attenders been in the greater degree promoted ? Every 
one knows that the balance is on the side of vice, and this 
conclusively decides the question — " Is it lawful to attend ?" 

The same question is to be asked, and the same answer I 
believe will be returned, respecting various other assemblies 
for purposes of amusement. They do more harm than good. 
They please but they injure us ; and what makes the case 
still stronger is, that the pleasure is frequently such as ought 
* Wilberforce : Practical View, c 4, s. 5. 



CHAP. XIV. 



AMUSEMENTS. 



271 



not to be enjoyed. A tippler enjoys pleasure in becoming 
drunk, but he is not to allege the gratification as a set-off 
against the immorality. And so it is with no small portion 
of the pleasures of an assembly. Dispositions are gratified 
which it were wiser to thwart ; and, to speak the truth, if the 
dispositions of the mind were such as they ought to be, many 
of these modes of diversion would be neither relished nor 
resorted to. Some persons try to persuade themselves that 
charity forms a part of their motive in attending such places ; 
as when the profits of the night are given to a benevolent in- 
stitution. They hope, I suppose, that though it would not be 
quite right to go if benevolence were not a gainer, yet that the 
end warrants the means. But if these persons are charitable, 
let them give their guinea without deducting half for purpo- 
ses of questionable propriety. Religious amusements, such 
as Oratorios and the like, form one of those artifices of chi- 
canery by which people cheat, or try to cheat, themselves. 
The music, say they, is sacred, is devotional ; and we go to 
hear it as we go to church : it excites and animates our reli- 
gious sensibilities. This, in spite of the solemnity of the 
association, is really ludicrous. These scenes subserve reli- 
gion no more than they subserve chemistry. They do not 
increase its power any more than the power of the steam-en- 
gine. As it respects Christianity, it is all imposition and fic- 
tion ; and it is unfortunate that some of the most solemn topics 
of our religion are brought into such unworthy and debasing 
alliance.* 

Masquerades are of a more decided character. If the 
pleasure which people derive from meeting in disguises con- 
sisted merely in the " fun and drollery" of the thing, we might 
wonder to see so many children of five and six feet high, and 
leave them perhaps to their childishness : — but the truth is, 
that to many the zest of the concealment consists in the op- 
portunity which it gives of covert licentiousness ; of doing 
that in secret, of which, openly, they would profess to be 
ashamed. Some men and some women who affect propriety 
when the face is shown, are glad of a few hours of concealed 
libertinism. It is a time in which principles are left to guard 
the citadel of virtue without the auxiliary of public opinion. 
And ill do they guard it ! It is no equivocal indication of the 
slender power of a person's principles, when they do not re- 
strain him any longer than his misdeeds will produce expo- 
sure. She who is immodest at a masquerade, is modest no- 
* See also Essay II. c. 1. 



272 AMUSEMENTS. [ESSAY II. 

where. She may affect the language of delicacy and main- 
tain external decorum, but she has no purity of mind. 

The Field. — If we proceed with the calculation of the 
benefits and mischiefs of Field Sports, in the merchant-like 
manner of debtor and creditor, the balance is presently found 
to be greatly against them. The advantages to him who 
rides after hounds and shoots pheasants, are — that he is amu- 
sed, and possibly that his health is improved ; some of the 
disadvantages are — that it is unpropitious to the influence of 
religion and the dispositions which religion induces ; that it 
expends money and time which a man ought to be able to 
employ better ; and that it inflicts gratuitous misery upon the 
inferior animals. The value of the pleasure cannot easily be 
computed, and as to health it may pass for nothing ; for if a 
man is so little concerned for his health that he will not take 
exercise without dogs and guns, he has no reason to expect 
other men to concern themselves for it in remarking upon his 
actions. And then for the other side of the calculation. That 
field sports have any tendency to make a man better, no one 
will pretend ; and no one who looks around him will doubt 
that their tendency is in the opposite direction. It is not ne- 
cessary to show that every one who rides after the dogs is a 
worse man in the evening than he was in the morning : the 
influence of such things is to be sought in those with whom 
they are habitual. Is the character of the sportsman, then, 
distinguished by religious sensibility ? No. By activity of 
Benevolence 1 No. ' By intellectual exertion 1 No. By 
purity of manners ? No. Sportsmen are not the persons who 
diffuse the light of Christianity, or endeavour to rectify the 
public morals, or to extend the empire of knowledge. Look 
again at the clerical sportsman. Is he usually as exemplary 
in the discharge of his functions as those who decline such 
diversions ? His parishioners know that he is not. So, then, 
the religious and moral tendency of Field Sports is bad. It 
is not necessary to show how the ill effect is produced. It is 
sufficient that it actually is produced. 

As to the expenditure of time and money, I dare say we 
shall be told that a man has a right to employ both as he 
chooses. We have heretofore seen that he has no such right. 
Obligations apply just as truly to the mode of employing lei- 
sure and property, as to the use which a man may make of a 
pound of arsenic. The obligations are not indeed alike en- 
forced in a court of justice : the misuser of arsenic is carried 
to prison, the misuser of time and money awaits as sure an 
enquiry at another tribunal. But no follv is more absurd than 



CHAP. XIV.] 



AMUSEMENTS. 



273 



that of supposing we have a right to do whatever the law does 
not punish. Such is the state of mankind, so great is the 
amount .of misery and degradation, and so great are the effects 
of money and active philanthropy in meliorating this condition 
of our species, that it is no light thing for a man to employ 
his time and property upon vain and needless gratifications. 
It is no light thing to keep a pack of hounds, and to spend 
days and weeks in riding after them. As to the torture which 
field sports inflict upon animals, it is wonderful to observe our 
inconsistencies. He who has, in the day, inflicted upon half 
a dozen animals almost as much torture as they are capable 
of sustaining, and who has wounded perhaps half a dozen 
more, and left them to die of pain or starvation, gives in the 
evening a grave reproof to his child, whom he sees amusing 
himself with picking off the wings of flies ! The infliction 
of pain is not that which gives pleasure to the sportsman, (this 
were ferocious depravity,) but he voluntarily inflicts the pain 
in order to please himself. Yet this man sighs and moralizes 
over the cruelty of children! An appropriate device for a 
sportsman's dress would be a pair of balances, of which one 
scale was laden with " Virtue and humanity," and the other 
with " Sport ;" the latter should be preponderating and lifting 
the other into the air. 

The Turf is still worse, partly because it is a stronghold 
of gambling, and therefore an efficient cause of misery and 
wickedness. It is an amusement of almost unmingled evil. 
But upon whom is the evil chargeable ? Upon the fifty or one 
hundred persons only who bring horses and make bets ? No ; 
every man participates who attends the course. The great 
attraction of many public spectacles, and of this amongst * 
others, consists more in the company than in the ostensible 
object of amusement. Many go to a race-ground who cannot 
tell when they return what horse has been the victor. Every 
one therefore who is present must take his share of the mis- 
chief and the responsibility. 

It is the same with respect to the gross and vulgar diver- 
sions of boxing, wrestling, and feats of running and riding. 
There is the same almost pure and unmingled evil — the same 
popularity resulting from the concourses who attend, and, by 
consequence, the participation and responsibility in those 
who do attend. The drunkenness, and the profaneness, and 
the debauchery, lie in part at the doors of those who are 
merely lookers-on ; and if these lookers-on make pretensions 
to purity of character, their example is so much the more in-* 
nuential and their responsibility tenfold increased. Defences 



274 



AMUSEMENTS. 



[ESSAY II. 



of these gross amusements are ridiculous. One tells us of 
keeping up the national spirit, which is the same thing as to 
say, that a human community is benefited by inducing into it 
the qualities of the bull-dog. Another expatiates upon invig- 
orating the muscular strength of the poor, as if the English 
poor were under so little necessity to labour, and to strengthen 
themselves by labour, that artificial means must be devised to 
increase their toil. • 

The vicissitudes of folly are endless ; the vulgar games of 
the present day may soon be displaced by others, the same in 
genus, but differing in species. At the present moment, 
Wrestling has become the point of interest. A man is con- 
veyed across the kingdom to try whether he can throw down 
another ; and when he has done it, grave narratives of the 
feat are detailed in half the newspapers of the country ! 
There is a grossness, a vulgarity, a want of mental elevation 
in these things, which might induce the man of intelligence 
to reprobate them even if the voice of morality were silent. 
They are remains of barbarism — evidences that barbarism 
still maintains itself amongst us — proofs that the higher qual- 
ities of our nature are not sufficiently dominant over the lower. 

These grossnesses will pass away, as the deadly conflicts 
of men with beasts are passed already. Our posterity will 
wonder at the barbarism of us, their fathers, as we wonder at 
the barbarism of Rome. Let him, then, who loves intellect- 
ual elevation advance beyond the present times, and anticipate, 
in the recreations which he encourages, that period when 
these diversions shall be regarded as indicating one of the in- 
termediate stages between the ferociousness of mental dark- 
• ness and the purity of mental light. 

These criticisms might be extended to many other species 
of amusement ; and it is humiliating to discover that the con- 
clusion will very frequently be the same — that the evil out- 
balances the good, and that there are no grounds upon which a 
good man can justify a participation in them. In thus conclu- 
ding, it is possible that the reader may imagine that we would 
exclude enjoyment from the world, and substitute a system of 
irreproachable austerity. He who thinks this is unacquainted 
with the nature and sources of our better enjoyments. It is 
an ordinary mistake to imagine that pleasure is great only 
when it is vivid or intemperate, as a child fancies it were more 
delightful to devour a pound of sugar at once, than to eat an 
ounce daily in his food. It is happily and kindly provided 
that the greatest sum of enjoyment is that which is quietly and 



CHAP. XV.] 



DUELLING. 



275 



constantly induced. No men understand the nature of pleas- 
ure so well, or possess it so much, as those who find it with- 
in their own doors. If it were not that Moral Education is so 
bad, multitudes would seek enjoyment and find it here, who 
now fancy that they never partake of pleasure except in 
scenes of diversion. It is unquestionably true that no com- 
munity enjoys life more than that which excludes all these 
amusements from its sources of enjoyment. We use there- 
fore the language, not of speculation, but of experience, when 
we say, that none of them is, in any degree, necessary to the 
happiness of life. 



CHAPTER XV. 

DUELLING. 

Pitt and Tierney — Duelling the offspring of intellectual meanness, fear, 
and servility — " A fighting man " — Hindoo immolations — Wilberforce 
— Seneca. 

It is not to much purpose to shoAv that this strange practice 
is in itself wrong, because no one denies it. Other grounds 
of defence are taken, although, to be sure, there is a plain ab- 
surdity in conceding that a thing is wrong in morals, and 
then trying to show that it is proper to practice it. 

Public notions exempt a clergyman from the " necessity" 
of fighting duels, and they exempt other men from the " neces- 
sity" of demanding satisfaction for a clergyman's insult. 
Now, we ask the man of honour whether he would rather 
receive an insult from a military officer or from a clergyman ? 
Which would give him the greater pain, and cause him the 
more concern and uneasiness ? That from the military officer, 
certainly. But why 1 Because the officer's affront leads to 
a duel, and the clergyman's does not. So, then, it is prefer- 
able to receive an insult to which the " necessity" of fighting 
is not attached than one to which it is attached. Why then 
attach the necessity to any man's affront ? You say, that 
demanding satisfaction is a remedy for the evil of an insult. 
But we see that the evil, together with the remedy, is worse 
than the evil alone. Why then institute the remedy at all ? 
It is not indeed to be questioned that some insults may be for- 



276 



DUELLING. 



[ESSAY II. 



borne, because it is known to what consequences they lead. 
But, on the other hand, for what purpose does one man insult 
another ? To give him pain ; now, we have just seen that 
the pain is so much the greater in consequence of the " neces- 
sity" of fighting, and therefore the motives to insult another 
are increased. A man who wishes to inflict pain upon another, 
can inflict it more intensely in consequence of the system of 
duelling. 

The truth is, that men fancy the system is useful, because 
they do not perceive how Public Opinion has been violently 
turned out of its natural and its usual course. When a mili- 
tary man is guilty of an insult, public disapprobation falls but 
lightly upon him. It reserves its force to direct against the 
insulted party if he does not demand satisfaction. But when 
a clergyman is guilty of an insult, public disapprobation falls 
upon him with undivided force. The insulted party receives 
no censure. Now, if you take away the custom of demand- 
ing satisfaction, what will be the result 1 Why, that public 
opinion will revert to its natural course ; it will direct all its 
penalties to the offending party, and by consequence restrain 
him from offending. It will act towards all men as it now 
acts towards the clergy ; and if a clergyman were frequently 
to be guilty of insults, his character would be destroyed. 
The reader will perhaps more distinctly perceive that the fan- 
cied utility of duelling in preventing insults, results from this 
misdirection of public opinion by this brief argument. 

An individual either fears public opinion, or he does not. 

If he does not fear it, the custom of duelling cannot prevent 
him from insulting whomsoever he pleases ; because public 
opinion is the only tiring which makes men fight, and he does 
not regard it. 

If he does fear public opinion, then the most effectual way 
of restraining him from insulting others, is by directing that 
opinion against the act of insulting — just as it is now directed 
in the case of the clergy.* 

Thus it is that we find — what he who knows the perfection 
of Christian morality would expect — that Duelling as it is 
immoral, so it is absurd. 

It appears to be forgotten that a duel is not more allowable 
to secure ourselves from censure or neglect than any other vio- 
lation of the Moral Law. If these motives constitute a justi- 
fication of a duel, they constitute a justification of robbery or 
poisoning. To advocate duelling is not to defend one species 
of offence, but to assert the general right to violate the laws 
* See West. Rev. No. 7. Art. 2. 



CHAP. XV.] 



DUELLING. 



277 



of God. If, as Dr. Johnson reasoned, the " notions which 
prevail" make fighting right, they can make anything right. 
Nothing is wanted but to alter the " notions which prevail," 
and there is not a crime mentioned in the statute-book that 
will not be lawful and honourable to-morrow. 

It is usual with those who do foolish and vicious things, or 
who do things from foolish or vicious motives, to invent some 
fiction by which to veil the evil or folly, and to give it, if pos- 
sible, a creditable appearance. This has been done in the 
case of duelling. We hear a great deal about honour, and 
spirit, and courage, and other qualities equally pleasant, and, 
as it respects the duellist, equally fictitious. The want of suf- 
ficient honour, and spirit, and courage, is precisely the very rea- 
son why men fight. Pitt fought with Tierney ; upon which 
Pitt's biographer writes — " A mind like his, cast in no common 
mould, should have risen superior to a low and unworthy pre- 
judice, the folly of which it must have perceived, and the 
wickedness of which it must have acknowledged. Could 
Mr. Pitt be led away by that false shame which subjects the 
decisions of reason to the control of fear, and renders the 
admonitions of conscience subservient to the powers of ridi- 
cule ?"* Low prejudice, folly, wickedness, false shame, and 
fear, are the motives which the complacent duellist dignifies 
with the titles of honour, spirit, courage. This, to be sure, is 
very politic ; he would not be so silly as to call his motives 
by their right names. Others, of course, join in the chican- 
ery. They reflect that they themselves may one day have 
" a meeting," and they wish to keep up the credit of a system 
which they are conscious they have not principle enough to 
reject. 

Put Christianity out of the question — Would not even the 
philosophy of paganism have despised that littleness of prin- 
ciple which would not bear a man up in adhering to conduct 
which he knew to be right — that littleness of principle which 
sacrifices the dictates of the understanding to an unworthy 
fear ? — When a good man, rather than conform to some vi- 
cious institution of the papacy, stood firmly against the frowns 
and persecutions of the world, against obloquy and infamy, 
we say that his mental principles were great as well as good. 
If they were, the principles of the duellist are mean as well 
as vicious. He is afraid to be good and great. He knows 
the course which dignity and virtue prescribe, but he will not 
rise above those lower motives which prompt him to deviate 
from that course. It does not affect these conclusions to con- 
* Gifford's Life, vol. 1, p. 263. 
24 



278 



DUELLING. 



[essay h. 



cede, that lie who is afraid to refuse a challenge may generally 
be a man of elevated mind. He may be such ; but his refu- 
sal is an exception to his general character. It is an instance 
in which he impeaches his consistency in excellence. If it 
were consistent, if the whole mind had attained to the right- 
ful stature of a Christian man, he would assuredly contemn 
in his practice the conduct which he disapproved in his heart. 
If you would show us a man of courage, bring forward him 
who will say, I will not fight. Suppose a gentleman who, 
upon the principles which Gifford says should have actuated 
Pitt and all great minds, had thus refused to fight, and sup- 
pose him saying to his withdrawing friends — " I have acted 
with perfect deliberation : I knew all the consequences of the 
course I have pursued : but I was persuaded that I should act 
most like a man of intellect, as well as like a Christian, by 
declining the meeting ; and therefore I declined it. I feel 
and deplore the consequences, though I do not deprecate 
them. I am not fearful, as I have not been fearful ; for I 
appeal to yourselves whether I have not encountered the 
more appalling alternative — whether it does not require a 
greater effort to do what I have done, and what I am at this 
moment doing, than to have met my opponent." — Such a 
man's magnanimity might not procure for him the companion- 
ship of his acquaintance, but it would do much more ; it would 
obtain the suffrages of their judgments and their hearts. 
Whilst they continued perhaps externally to neglect him, they 
would internally honour and admire. They would feel that 
his excellence was of an order to which they could make no 
pretensions ; and they would feel, as they were practising 
this strange hypocrisy of vice, that they were the proper ob- 
jects of contempt and pity. 

The species of slavery to which a man is sometimes re- 
duced by being, as he calls it, " obliged to fight," is really 
pitiable. A British officer writes of a petulant and profligate 
class of men, one of whom is sometimes found in a regiment, 
and says, " Sensible that an officer must accept a challenge, 
he does not hesitate to deal them in abundance, and shortly 
■ acquires the name of a fighting man ; but as every one is not 
willing to throw away his life when called upon by one who 
is indifferent to his own, many become condescending, which 
this man immediately construes into fear ; and, presuming 
upon this, he acts as if he imagined no one dare contradict 
him but all must yield obedience to his will" Here the servile 
bondage of which we speak is brought prominently out. Here 
is the crouching and unmanly fear. Here is the abject sub- 



CHAP. XV.] 



DUELLING. 



279 



mission of sense and reason to the grossest vulgarity of inso- 
lence, folly and guilt. The officer presently gives an account 
of an instance in which the whole mess were domineered 
over by one of these fighting men ; — and a pitiably ludicrous 
account it is. The man had invited them to dinner at some 
distance. " On the day appointed, there came on a most 
violent snow storm, and in the morning we despatched a ser- 
vant with an apology." But alas ! these poor men could not 
use their own judgments as to whether they should ride in a 
*' most violent snow storm" or not. The man sent back some 
rude message that he " expected them." They were afraid 
of what, the fighting man would do next morning ; and so the 
whose mess, against their wills, actually rode " near four 
miles in a heavy snow storm, and passed a day," says the 
officer, " that was, without exception, the most unpleasant I 
ever passed in my life !"* ' In the instance of these men, the 
motives to duelling as founded upon Fear, operated so power- 
fully that the officers were absolutely enslaved — driven against 
their wills by Fear, as negroes are by a cart-whip. 

We are shocked and disgusted at the immolation of women 
amongst the Hindoos, and think that, if such a sacrifice were 
attempted in England, it would excite feelings of the utmost 
repulsion and abhorrence. Of the custom of Tmmolation, 
Duelling is the sister. Their parents are the same, and, like 
other sisters, thejr lineaments are similar. Why does a 
Hindoo mount the funeral pile ? To vindicate and maintain 
her honour. Why does an Englishman go to the heath with 
his pistols ? To vindicate and maintain his honour. What is 
the nature and character of the Hindoo's honour ? Quite fac- 
titious. Of the duellist's ? Quite factitious. How is the 
motive applied to the Hindoo ? To her fears of reproach. 
To the duellist? To his fears of reproach. What then is 
the difference between the two customs ? This — that one is 
practised in the midst of pagan darkness, and the other in the 
midst of Christian light. And yet these very men give their 
guineas to the Missionary Society, lament the degradation of 
the Hindoos, and expatiate upon the sacred duty of enlighten- 
ing them with Christianity ! " Physician ! heal thyself." 

One consideration connected with duelling is of unusual 
interest. " In the judgment of that religion which requires 
purity of heart, and of that Being to whom thought is action, 
he cannot be esteemed innocent of this crime, who lives in a 
settled, habitual, determination to commit it, when circum- 
stances shall call upon him so to do. This is a considera- 
* Lieut. Auburey : Travels in North America. 



280 



SUICIDE. 



[essay. II. 



tion which places the crime of duelling on a different footing 
from almost any other; indeed there is perhaps no other, 
which mankind habitually and deliberately resolve to practice 
whenever the temptation shall occur. It shows also that the 
crime of duelling is far more general in the higher classes 
than is commonly supposed, and that the whole sum of the 
guilt which the practice produces, is great beyond what has 
perhaps been ever conceived."* 

" It is the intention," says Seneca, " and not the effect 
which makes the wickedness :" and that Greater than Seneca 
who laid the axe to the root of our vices, who laid upon the 
mental disposition that guilt which had been laid upon the 
act, may be expected to regard this habitual willingness and 
intention to violate his laws, as an actual and great offence. 
The felon who plans and resolves to break into a house, is 
not the less a felon because a watchman happens to prevent 
him ; nor is the offence of him who happens never to be 
challenged, necessarily at all less than that of him who takes 
the life of his friend. 



CHAPTER XVI. * 

SUICIDE. 

Unmanliness of Suicide — Forbidden in the New Testament — Its folly — 
Legislation respecting suicide — Verdict of Felo de Be. 

There are few subjects upon which it is more difficult 
either to write or to legislate with effect, than that, of Suicide. 
It is difficult to a writer, because a man does not resolve upon 
the act until he has first become steeled to some of the most 
powerful motives that can be urged upon the human mind ; 
and to the legislator, because he can inflict no penalty upon 
the offending party. 

It is to be feared that there is little probability of diminish- 
ing the frequency of this miserable offence by urging the 
considerations which philosophy suggests. The voice of 
nature is louder and stronger than the voice of philosophy; 
and as nature speaks to the suicide in vain, what is the hope 
that philosophy will be regarded ? — There appears to be but 

* Wilberforce : Practical View, c. 4. s. 3. 



CHAP. XVI.] 



SUICIDE. 



281 



one efficient means by which the mind can be armed against 
the temptations to suicide, because there is but one that can 
support it against every evil of life — practical religion — belief 
in the providence of God — confidence in his wisdom — hope 
in his goodness. The only anchor that can hold us in safety, 
is that which is fixed " within the vail." He upon whom 
religion possesses its proper influence, finds that it enables 
him to endure, with resigned patience, every calamity of life. 
When patience thus fulfils its perfect work, suicide, which is 
the result of impatience, cannot be committed. He who is 
surrounded, by whatever means, with pain or misery, should 
remember that the present existence is strictly probationary — 
a scene upon which we are to be exercised, and tried, and 
tempted ; and in which we are to manifest whether we are 
willing firmly to endure. The good or evil of the present 
life is of importance chiefly as it influences our allotment in 
futurity : sufferings are permitted for our advantage : they are 
designed to purify and rectify the heart. The universal 
Father " scourgeth every son whom he receiveth and the 
suffering, the scourging, is of little account in comparison 
with the prospects of another world. It is not worthy to be 
compared with the glory which shall follow — that glory of 
which an exceeding and eternal weight is the reward of a 
"patient continuance in well doing." To him who thus re- 
gards misery, not as an evil but as a good ; not as the unre- 
strained assault of chance or malice, but as the beneficent 
discipline of a Father ; to him who remembers that the time 
is approaching in which he will be able most feelingly to say, 
" For all I bless Thee — most for the severe" — every affliction 
is accompanied with its proper alleviation : the present hour 
may distress but it does not overwhelm him ; he may be per- 
plexed but is not in despair : he sees the darkness and feels 
the storm, but he knows that light will again arise, and that 
the storm will eventually be hushed with an efficacious, Peace 
be still ; so that there shall be a great calm. 

Compared with these motives to avoid the first promptings 
to suicide, others are likely to be of little effect; and yet they 
are neither inconsiderable nor few. It is more dignified, 
more worthy an enlightened and manly understanding, to 
meet and endure an inevitable evil than to sink beneath it. 
The case of him who feels prompted to suicide, is something 
like that of the duellist as it was illustrated in the preceding 
chapter. Each sacrifices his life to his fears. The suicide 
balances between opposing objects of dread, (for dreadful self- 
destruction must be supposed to be,) and chooses the alterna- 

24* 



282 



SUICIDE. 



[ESSAY II. 



tive which he fears least. If his courage, his firmness, his 
manliness, were greater, he who chooses the alternative of 
suicide, like him who chooses the duel, would endure the 
evil rather than avoid it in a manner which dignity and reli- 
gion forbid. The lesson too which the self-destroyer teaches 
to his connexions, of sinking in despair under the evils of 
life, is one of the most pernicious which a man can bequeath. 
The power of the example is also great. Every act of sui- 
cide tacitly conveys the sanction of one more judgment in its 
favour : frequency of repetition diminishes the sensation of 
abhorrence, and makes succeeding sufferers resort to it with 
less reluctance. " Besides which general reasons, each case 
will be aggravated by its own proper and particular conse- 
quences ; by the duties that are deserted ; by the claims that 
are defrauded ; by the loss, affliction, or disgrace which our 
death, or the manner of it, causes our family, kindred, or 
friends; by the occasion we give to many to suspect the 
sincerity of our moral religious professions, and, together 
with ours, those of all others ;"* and lastly, by the scandal 
which we bring upon religion itself by declaring, practically, 
that it is not able to support man under the calamities of life. 

Some men say that the New Testament contains no prohi- 
bition of suicide. If this were true, it would avail nothing, 
because there are many things which it does not forbid, but 
which every one knows to be wicked. But in reality it does 
forbid it. Every exhortation which it gives to be patient, 
every, encouragement to trust in God, every consideration 
which it urges as a support under affliction and distress, is a 
virtual prohibition of suicide ; — because, if a man commits 
suicide, he rejects every such advice and encouragement, and 
disregards every such motive. 

To him who believes either in revealed or natural religion, 
there is a certain folly in the commission of suicide ; for from 
what does he fly 1 From his present sufferings ; whilst death, 
for aught that he has reason to expect, or at any rate for aught 
that he knows, may only be the portal to sufferings more 
intense. Natural religion, I think, gives no countenance to 
the supposition that suicide can be approved by the Deity, 
because it proceeds upon the belief that, in another state of 
existence, he will compensate good men for the sufferings of 
the present. At the best, and under either religion, it is a 
desperate stake. He that commits murder may repent, and 
we hope, be forgiven ; but he that destroys himself, whilst he 
* Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 4, c 3. 



CHAP. XVI.] 



SUICIDE. 



283 



incurs a load of guilt, cuts off, by the act, the power of re- 
pentance. 

Not every act of suicide is to be attributed to excess of 
misery. Some shoot themselves or throw themselves into a 
river in rage or revenge, in order to inflict pain and remorse 
upon those who have ill used them. Such, it is to be sus- 
pected, is sometimes a motive to self-destruction in disap- 
pointed love. The unhappy person leaves behind some mes- 
sage or letter, in the hope of exciting that affection and com- 
miseration by the catastrophe, which he could not excite 
when alive. Perhaps such persons hope, too, that the world 
will sigh over their early fate, tell of the fidelity of their loves, 
and throw a romantic melancholy over their story. This 
needs not to be a subject of wonder : unnumbered multitudes 
have embraced death in other forms from kindred motives. 
We hear continually of those who die for the sake of glory. 
This is but another phantom, and the less amiable phantom 
of the two. It is just as reasonable to die in order that the 
world may admire our true love, as in order that it may ad- 
mire our bravery. And the lover's hope is the better founded. 
There are too many aspirants for glory for each to get even 
his "peppercorn of praise." But the lover may hope for 
higher honours ; a paragraph may record his fate through the 
existence of a weekly paper ; he may be talked of through 
half a county ; and some kindred spirit, may inscribe a tribu- 
tary sonnet in a lady's album. 

To legislate efficiently upon the crime of suicide is difficult, 
if it is not impossible. As the legislator cannot inflict a 
penalty upon the offender, the act must pass with impunity 
unless the penalty is made to fall upon the innocent. I say 
the penalty ; for such it would actually be, whatever were 
the provision of the law — whether, for instance, confiscation 
of property, or indignity to the remains of the dead. One 
would make a family poor, and the other perhaps unhappy. 
It does not appear just or reasonable that these should suffer 
for an offence which they could not prevent, and by which 
they, above all others, are already injured and distressed. 

One thing appears to be clear, that it is vain for a Legisla- 
ture to attempt any interference of which the people do not 
approve. This is evident from the experience in our own 
country, where coroner's juries prefer perjuring themselves 
to pronouncing a verdict of felo de se, by which the remains 
would be subjected to barbarous indignities. Coroners' in- 
quests seem to proceed rather upon the pre-supposition that he 



284 



SUICIDE. 



[ESSAY II. 



who destroys himself is insane, than upon the evidence which 
is brought before them ; and thus, whilst the law is evaded, 
perjury it is to be feared is very frequent. That the public 
mind disapproves the existing law is a good reason for alter- 
ing it ; but it is not a good reason why coroners' juries should 
violate their oaths, and give encouragement to the suicide by 
telling him that disgrace will be warded off from his memory 
and from his family by a generous verdict of insanity. It 
has been said that it is a common thing for a suicide's friends 
to fee the coroner in order to induce him to prevent a verdict 
of felo de se. If this be true, it is indeed time that the arm 
of the law should be vigorously extended. What punishment 
is due to the man who accepts a purse as a reward for indu- 
cing twelve persons to commit perjury ? It is probable too, 
that half-a-dozen just verdicts, by which the law was allowed 
to take its course, would occasion the abolition of the disgust- 
ing statute ;* for the public would not bear that it should be 
acted upon. 

The great object is to associate with the act of suicide 
ideas of guilt and horror in the public mind. This associa- 
tion would be likely to preclude, in individuals, that first com- 
placent contemplation of the act which probably precedes, by 
a long interval, the act itself. The anxiety which the survi- 
ving friends manifest for a verdict of " insanity," is a proof 
how great is the power of imagination, and how much they 
are in dread of public opinion. They are anxious that the 
disgrace and reproach of conscious self-murder should not 
cling to their family. This is precisely that anxiety of which 
the legislator should avail himself, by enactments that would 
require satisfactory proof of insanity, and which, in default of 
such proof, would leave to its full force the stigma and the 
pain, and excite a sense of horror of the act, and a perception of 
its wickedness in the public mind. The point for the exercise 
of legislative wisdom is, to devise such an ultimate procedure 
as shall call forth these feelings, but as shall not become nu- 
gatory by being more dreadful than the public will endure. — 
What that procedure should be, I pretend not to describe ; but 
it may be observed that the simple circumstance of pronounc- 
ing a public verdict of conscious self-murder, would, amongst 
a people of good feelings, go far towards the production of the 
desired effect. — As the law now exists, and as it is now vio- 
lated, the tendency is exactly the contrary of what it ought to 

* This statute has been repealed ; and the law now simply requires, 
when a verdict of felo de se is returned, that the body shall be interred 
privately, at night, and without the funeral service. Ed. 



CHAP. XVII.] RIGHTS OF SELF-DEFENCE. 285 

be. By the almost universal custom which it generates, of 
declaring suicides to have been insane, it effectually diminishes 
that pain to individuals, and that horror in the public, which 
the crime itself would naturally occasion. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

RIGHTS OF SELF-DEFENCE. 

These rights not absolute — Their limits — Personal attack — Preservation 
of property — Much resistance lawful — Effects of forbearance — Sharpe 
— Barclay — Ellwood. 

The right of defending ourselves against violence is easily 
deducible from the Law of Nature. There is however little 
need to deduce it, because mankind are at least sufficiently 
persuaded of its lawfulness. — The great question, which the 
opinions and principles that now influence the world makes it 
needful to discuss is, Whether the right of self-defence is ab- 
solute and unconditional — Whether every action whatever is 
lawful, provided it is necessary to the preservation of life ? 
They who maintain the affirmative, maintain a great deal ; for 
they maintain that whenever life is endangered, all rules of 
morality are, as it respects the individual, suspended, annihi- 
lated : every moral obligation is taken away by the single fact 
that life is threatened. 

Yet the language that is ordinarily held upon the subject 
implies the supposition of all this. " If our lives are threat- 
ened with assassination or open violence from the hands of rob- 
bers or enemies, any means of defence would be allowed, 
and laudable."* Again, " There is one case in which all ex- 
tremities are justifiable, namely, when our life is assaulted, 
and it becomes.necessary for our preservation to kill the as- 
sailant." f 

The reader may the more willingly enquire whether these 
propositions are true, because most of those who lay them 
down are at little pains to prove their truth. Men are- ex- 
tremely willing to acquiesce in it without proof, and writers 
and speakers think it unnecessary to adduce it. Thus per- 



* Grotius : Rights of War and Peace. 
Pol. Phil, p 3, b. iv. c. I. 



t Paley : Mor. and 



286 RIGHTS OF SELF-DEFENCE. [ESSAY II. 



haps it happens that fallacy is not detected because it is not 
sought. — If the reader should think that some of the instances 
which follow are remote from the ordinary affairs of life, he 
is requested to remember that we are discussing the sound- 
ness of an alleged absolute rule. If it be found that there are 
or have been, cases in which it is not absolute — cases in 
which all extremities are not lawful in defence of life — then 
the rule is not sound : then there are some limits to the Right 
of Self-Defence. 

If " any means of defence are laudable," if " all extremi- 
ties are justifiable," then they are not confined to acts of re- 
sistance to the assailing party. There may be other condi- 
tions upon which life may be preserved than that of violence 
towards Mm. Some ruffians seize a man in the highway, and 
will kill him unless he will conduct them to his neighbour's 
property and assist them in carrying it off. May this man 
unite with them in the robbery in order to save his life, or 
may he not ? If he may, what becomes of the law, Thou 
shalt not steal ? If he may not, then not every means by 
which a man may preserve his life is " laudable" or " allowed." 
We have found an exception to the rule. There are twenty 
other wicked things which violent men may make the sole 
condition of not taking our lives. Do all wicked things be- 
come lawful because life is at stake ? If they do, Morality is 
surely at an end : if they do not, such propositions as those 
of Grotius and Paley are untrue. 

A pagan has unalterably resolved to offer me up in sacrifice 
on the morrow, unless I will acknowledge the deity of his 
gods and worship them. I shall presume that the Christian 
will regard these acts as being, under every possible circum- 
stance, unlawful. The night offers me an opportunity of as- 
sassinating him. Now I am placed, so far as the argument 
is concerned, in precisely the same situation with respect to 
this man, as a traveller is with respect to a ruffian with a pis- 
tol. Life in both cases depends on killing the offender. — 
Both are acts of self-defence. Am I at liberty to assassinate 
this man ? The heart of the Christian surely answers, No. 
Here then is a case in which I may not take a violent man's 
life in order to save my own. — We have said that the heart of 
the Christian answers, No : and this we think is a just spe- 
cies of appeal. But if any one doubts whether the assassina- 
tion would be unlawful, let him consider whether one of the 
Christian apostles would have committed it in such a case. 
Here, at any rate, the heart of every man answers, No. And 
mark the reason — because every man perceives that the act 



CHAP. XVII.] RIGHTS OF SELF-DEFENCE. 



287 



would have been palpably inconsistent with the apostolic charac- 
ter and conduct ; or, which is the same thing, with a Chris- 
tian character and conduct. 

Or put such a case in a somewhat different form. A furi- 
ous Turk holds a scimitar over my head, and declares he will 
instantly dispatch me unless I abjure Christianity and ac- 
knowledge the divine legation of "the Prophet." Now there 
are two supposable ways in which I may save my life ; one 
by contriving to stab the Turk, and one " by denying Christ 
before men." You say I am not at liberty to deny Christ, 
but I am at liberty to stab the man. Why am I not at liberty 
to deny Him ? Because Christianity forbids it. Then we 
require you to show that Christianity does not forbid you to 
take his life. Our religion pronounces both actions to be 
wrong. You say that, under these circumstances, the hilling 
is right. Where is your proof ? What is the ground of your 
distinction ? — But, whether it can be adduced or not, our im- 
mediate argument is established — That there are some things 
which it is not lawful to do in order to preserve our lives. — 
This conclusion has indeed been practically acted upon. A 
company of inquisitors and their agents are about to conduct 
a good man to the stake. If he could by any means destroy 
these men, he might save his life. It is a question therefore of 
self-defence. Supposing these means to be within his power 
— supposing he could contrive a mine, and by suddenly firing 
it, blow his persecutors into the air — would it be lawful and 
Christian thus to act ? No. The common judgments of man- 
kind respecting the right temper and conduct of the martyr, 
pronounce it to be wrong. It is pronounced to be wrong by 
the language and example of the first teachers of Christianity. 
The conclusion therefore again is that all extremities are not 
allowable in order to preserve life ; — that there is a limit to 
the right of self-defence. 

It would be to no purpose to say that in some of the in- 
stances which have been proposed, religious duties interfere 
with and limit the rights of self-defence. This is a common 
fiiilacy. Religious duties and moral duties are identical in 
point of obligation, for they are imposed by one authority. 
Religious duties are not obligatory for any other reason than 
that which attaches to moral duties also ; namely the Will of 
God. He who violates the Moral Law is as truly unfaithful 
in his allegiance to God, as he who denies Christ before men. 

So that we come at last to one single and simple question, 
whether taking the life of a person who threatens ours, is or 
is not compatible with the Moral Law. We refer for an an- 



288 



RIGHTS OF SELF-DEFENCE. [ESSAY II. 



swer to the broad principles of Christian piety and Christian 
benevolence ; that piety which reposes habitual confidence 
in the Divine Providence, and an habitual preference of futu- 
rity to the present time ; and that benevolence which not only 
loves our neighbours as ourselves, but feels that the Samari- 
tan or the enemy is a neighbour. There is no conjecture in 
life in which the exercise of his benevolence may be sus- 
pended ; none in which we are not required to maintain and 
to practise it. Whether Want implores our compassion, or 
Ingratitude returns ill for our kindness ; whether a fellow 
creature is drowning in a river or assailing us on the high- 
way ; every where, and under all circumstances, the duty 
remains. 

Is killing an assailant, then, within or without the limits of 
this Benevolence ? — As to the man, it is evident that no 
good-will is exercised towards him by shooting him through 
the head. Who indeed will dispute that, before we can 
thus destroy him, benevolence towards him must be excluded 
from our minds 1 We not only exercise no benevolence our- 
selves, but preclude him from receiving it from any human 
heart ; and, which is a serious item in the account, we cut 
him off from all possibility of reformation. To call sinners 
to repentance, was one of the great characteristics of the 
mission of Christ. Does it appear consistent with this char- 
acteristic for one of His followers to take away from a sinner 
the power of repentance ? Is it an act that accords, and is 
congruous, with Christian love ? 

But an argument has been attempted here. That we may 
"kill the assailant is evident in a state of nature, unless it 
can be shown that we are bound to prefer the aggressor's life 
to our own ; that is to say, to love our enemy better than our- 
selves, which can never be a debt of justice, nor any where 
appears to be a duty of charity." * The answer is this : That 
although we may not be required to love our enemy better 
than ourselves, we are required to love him as ourselves ; and 
therefore, in the supposed case, it would still be a question 
equally balanced which life ought to be sacrificed ; for it w 
quite clear that, if we kill the assailant, we love him less than 
ourselves, which does seem to militate against a duty of char- 
ity. But the truth is that he who, from motives of obedience 
to the will of God, spares the aggressor's life even to the en- 
dangering his own, does exercise love both to the aggressor 
and to himself, perfectly : to the aggressor, because by spa- 
ring his life we give him the opportunity of repentance and 
* Paley : Mor. and Pol. Phil, p 3, b. 4. c. 1. 



CHAP. XVII.] RIGHTS OF SELF-DEFENCE - 



289 



amendment : to himself, because every act of obedience to 
God is perfect benevolence towards ourselves ; it is consult- 
ing and promoting our most valuable interests ; it is propitia- 
ting the favour of him who is emphatically "a rich rewarder." 
— So that the question remains as before, not whether we 
should love our enemy better than ourselves, but whether 
Christian principles are acted upon in destroying him ; and if 
they are not, whether we should prefer Christianity to our- 
selves ; whether we should be willing to lose our life for 
Christ's sake and the gospel's. 

Perhaps it will be said that we should exercise benevo- 
lence to the public as well as to the offender, and that we may 
exercise more benevolence to them by killing than by sparing 
him. But very few persons, when they kill a man who at- 
tacks them, kill him out of benevolence to the public. That 
is not the motive which influences their conduct, or which 
they at all take into the account. Besides, it is by no means 
certain that the public would lose anything by the forbear- 
ance. To be sure, a man can do no more mischief after he 
is killed ; but then it is to be remembered, that robbers are 
more desperate and more murderous from the apprehension of 
swords and pistols than they would be without it. Men are 
desperate in proportion to their apprehensions of danger. 
The plunderer who feels a confidence that his own life will 
not be taken, may conduct his plunder with comparative gen- 
tleness ; whilst he who knows that his life is in immediate 
jeopardy, stuns or murders his victim lest he should be killed 
himself. The great evil which a family sustains by a rob- 
bery is often not the loss, but the terror and the danger ; and 
these are the evils which, by the exercise of forbearance, 
would be diminished. So that, if some bad men are pre- 
vented from committing robberies by the fear of death, the 
public gains in other ways by the forbearance : nor is it by 
any means certain that the balance of advantages is in favour 
of the more violent course. — The argument which we are 
opposing proceeds on the supposition that our own lives are 
endangered. Now it is a fact that this very danger results, 
in part, from the want of habits of forbearance. We publicly 
profess that we would kill an assailant ; and the assailant, 
knowing this, prepares to kill us when otherwise he would 
forbear. 

And after all, if it were granted that a person is at liberty 
to take an assailant's life in order to preserve his own, how is 
he to know, in the majority of instances, whether his own 
would be taken ? When a man breaks into a person's house, 

25 



I 



290 



RIGHTS. OF SELF-DEFENCE, 



[essay it. 



and this person, as soon as he comes up with the robber, 
takes out a pistol and shoots him, we are not to be told that 
this man was killed " in defence of life." Or go a step fur- 
ther, and a step further still, by which the intention of the 
robber to commit personal violence or inflict death is more 
and more probable : — You must at last shoot him in uncer- 
tainty whether your life was endangered or not. Besides, 
you can withdraw — you can fly. None but the predeter- 
mined murderer wishes to commit murder. But perhaps you 
exclaim — " Fly ! fly, and leave your property, unprotected !" 
Yes — unless you mean to say that preservation of property, 
as well as preservation of life, makes it lawful to kill an 
offender. This were to adopt a new and a very different 
proposition; but a proposition which I suspect cannot be 
separated in practice from the former. He who affirms that 
he may kill another in order to preserve his life, and that he 
may endanger his life in order to protect his property, does 
in reality affirm that he may kill another in order to preserve 
his property. But such a proposition, in an unconditional 
form, no one surely will tolerate. The laws of the land do 
not admit it, nor do they even admit the right of taking an- 
other's life simply because he is attempting to take ours. 
They require that we should be tender even of the murderer's 
life, and that we should fly rather than destroy it.* 

We say that the proposition that we may take life in order 
to preserve our property is intolerable. To preserve how 
much ? five hundred pounds, or fifty, or ten, or a shilling or a 
sixpence ? It has actually been declared that the rights of 
self-defence "justify a man in taking all forcible methods 
which are necessary, in order to procure the restitution of 
the freedom or the property of which he had been unjustly 
deprived."! All forcible methods to obtain restitution of pro- 
perty ! No limit to the nature or effects of the force ! No 
limit to the insignificance of the amount of the property! 
Apply, then, the rule. A boy snatches a bunch of grapes 
from a fruiterer's stall. The fruiterer runs after the thief, 
but finds that he is too light of foot to be overtaken. More- 
over, the boy eats as he runs. " All forcible methods," rea- 
sons the fruiterer, " are justifiable to obtain restitution of pro- 
perty. I may fire after the plunderer, and when he falls 
regain my grapes." All this is just and right, if Gisborne's 
proposition is true. It is a dangerous thing to lay down max- 
ims in morality. 

The conclusion, then, to which we are led by these enqui- 
* Blackstone : Com. v. 4, c. 4. t Gisborne : Moral Philosophy. 



CHAP. XVII.] RIGHTS OF SELF-DEFENCE. 



291 



ries is, that lie who kills another, even upon the plea of self- 
defence, does not do it in the predominance nor in the exer- 
cise of Christian dispositions : and if this is true, is it not also 
true, that his life cannot be thus taken in conformity with the 
Christian law ? 

But this is very far from concluding that no resistance may 
be made to aggression. We may make, and we ought to 
make, a great deal. It is the duty of the civil magistrate to 
repress the violence of one man towards another, and by con- 
sequence it is the duty of the individual, when the civil 
power cannot operate, to endeavour to repress it himself. 
I perceive no reasonable exception to the rule — that what- 
ever Christianity permits the magistrate to do in order to re- 
strain violence, it permits the individual, under such circum- 
stances to do also. I know the consequences to which this 
rule leads in the case of the punishment of death, and of 
other questions. These questions will hereafter be discussed. 
In the mean time, it may be an act of candour to the reader 
to acknowledge, that our chief motive for the discussions of 
the present chapter, has been to pioneer the way for a satis- 
factory investigation of the Punishment of Death, and of other 
modes by which human life is taken away. 

Many kinds of resistance to aggression come strictly within 
the fulfilment of the law of benevolence. He who, by 
securing, or temporarily disabling a man, prevents him from 
committing an act of great turpitude, is certainly his benefac- 
tor : and if he be thus reserved for justice, the benevolence 
is great both to him and to the public. It is an act of much 
kindness to a bad man to secure him for the penalties of the 
law : or it would be such, if penal law were in the state in 
which it ought to be, and to which it appears to be making 
some approaches. It would then be very probable that the 
man would be reformed : and this is the greatest benefit 
which can be conferred upon him and upon the community. 

The exercise of Christian forbearance towards violent men 
is not tantamount to an invitation of outrage. Cowardice is 
one thing; this forbearance is another. The man of true 
forbearance is of all men the least cowardly. **Lt requires 
courage in a greater degree and of a higher order to practice 
it when life is threatened, than to draw a sword or fire a 
pistol. — No : It is the peculiar privilege of Christian virtue 
to approve itself even to the bad. There is something in 
the nature of that calmness, and self-possession, and forbear- 
ance, that religion effects, which obtains, nay which almost 
commands regard and respect. How different the effect 



292 



RIGHTS OF SELF-DEFENCE. 



[ESSAY II. 



upon the violent tenants of Newgate, the hardihood of a turn- 
key and the mild courage of an Elizabeth Fry ! Experience, 
incontestable experience, has proved, that the minds of few 
men are so depraved or desperate as to prevent them from 
being influenced by real Christian conduct. Let him there- 
fore who advocates the taking the life of an aggressor, first 
show that all other means of safety are vain ; let him show 
that bad men, notwithstanding the exercise of true Christian 
forbearance, persist in their purposes of death : when he 
has done this he will have adduced an argument in favour of 
taking their lives which will not indeed, be conclusive, but 
which will approach nearer to conclusiveness than any that has 
yet been adduced. 

Of the consequences of forbearance, even in the case of 
personal attack, there are some examples : Archbishop 
Sharpe was assaulted by a footpad on the highway, who 
presented a pistol and demanded his money. The Archbishop 
spoke to the robber in the language of a fellow man and of a 
Christian. The man was really in distress, and the prelate 
gave him such money as he had, and promised that, if he 
would call at the palace, he would make up the amount to 
fifty pounds. This was the sum of which the robber had 
said he stood in the utmost need. The man called and re- 
ceived the money. About a year and a half afterwards, this 
man again came to the palace and brought back the same 
sum. He said that his circumstances had become improved, 
and that, through the " astonishing goodness" of the Arch- 
bishop, he had become " the most penitent, the most grateful, 
and happiest of his species." — Let the reader consider how 
different the Archbishop's feelings were, from what they 
would have been if, by his hand this man had been cut off.* 

Barclay, the Apologist, was attacked by a highwayman. 
He substituted for the ordinary modes of resistance, a calm 
expostulation. The felon dropped his presented pistol, and 
offered no further violence. A Leonard Fell was similarly 
attacked, and from him the robber took both his money and 
his horse, and then threatened to blow out his brains. Fell 
solemnly spoke to the man on the wickedness of his life. 
The robber was astonished : he had expected, perhaps, 
curses, or perhaps a dagger. He declared he would not 
keep either the horse or the money, and returned both. " If 
thine enemy hunger, feed him ; for in so doing thou shalt 

* See Lond. Chron. Aug. 12, 1785. See also life of Granville 
Sharpe, Esq., p. 13. 



CHAP. XVII.] RIGHTS OF SELF-DEFENCE. 



293 



heap coals of fire upon his head."* — The tenor of the short 
narrative that follows is somewhat different. Ellwood, who 
is known to the literary world as the suggester to Milton of 
Paradise Regained, was attending his father in his coach. 
Two men waylaid them in the dark and stopped the carriage. 
Young Ellwood got out, and on going up to the nearest, the 
ruffian raised a heavy club, " when," says Ellwood, " I whipt 
out my rapier and made a pass upon him. I could not have 
failed running him through up to the hilt," but the sudden 
appearance of the bright blade terrified the man so that he 
stepped aside, avoided the thrust, and both he and the other 
fled. " At that time," proceeds Ellwood, " and for a good 
while after, I had no regret upon my mind for what I had 
done." This was whilst he was young, and when the for- 
bearing principles of Christianity had little influence upon 
him. But afterwards, when this influence became powerful, 
" a sort of horror," he says, " seized on me when I considered 
how near I had been to the staining of my hands with human 
blood. And whensoever afterwards I went that way, and 
indeed as often since as the matter has come into my remem- 
brance, my soul has blessed Him who preserved and with- 
held me from shedding man's blood. "f 

That those over whom, as over Ellwood, the influence of 
Christianity is imperfect and weak, should think themselves 
at liberty upon such occasions to take the lives of their fel- 
low-men, needs to be no subject of wonder. Christianity, if 
we would rightly estimate its obligations, must be felt in the 
heart. They in whose hearts it is not felt, or felt but little, 
cannot be expected perfectly to know what its obligations are. 
I know not therefore that more appropriate advice can be 
given to him who contends for the lawfulness of taking ano- 
ther man's life in order to save his own, than that he would 
first enquire whether the influence of religion is dominant in 
his mind. If it is not, let him suspend his decision until he 
has attained to the fulness of the stature of a Christian man. 
Then, as he will be of that number who do the Will of Hea- 
ven, he may hope to " know of this doctrine whether it be of 
God." 

* " Select Anecdotes, &c." by John Barclay. t Ellwood's Life. 



V 



ESSAY III.* 

POLITICAL RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS. 



PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL TRUTH, AND OF 
POLITICAL RECTITUDE. 

I. — " Political Power is rightly exercised only when it is possessed by con- 

sent of the community" — Governors officers of the Public — Transfer 
of their rights by a whole people — The people hold the sovereign 
power — Right of Governors — A conciliating system. 

II. — "Political Power is rightly exercised only when it subserves the 
welfare of the community" — Interference with other nations — Present 
expedients for present occasions — Proper business of Governments. 

III. — " Political Power is rightly exercised only when it subserves the 
welfare of the community by means which the Moral Law permits" — 
The Moral Law alike binding on nations and individuals — Deviation 
from rectitude impolitic — " The Holy Alliance" — Durable fame. 

The fundamental principles which are deducible from the 
law of nature and from Christianity, respecting political af- 
fairs, appear to be these : — 

1 . Political Power is rightly possessed only when it is pos- 
sessed by consent of the community ; — 

2. It is rightly exercised only when it subserves the wel- 
fare of the community ; — 

3. And only when it subserves this purpose, by means 
which the Moral Law permits. 

[* This Essay the author did not live to revise, a circumstance which 
will account for a want of complete connexion of the different parts of a 
subject which the reader will sometimes meet with. There occur also 
in this part of the manuscript numerous memoranda, which the author 
intended to make use of in a future revision. These are to be distin- 
guished from the Notes, as the former refer, not to any particular passage 
but only to the subject of the chapter or section. They were hastily, as 
the thought occurred, written in the margin or on a blank leaf of the 
manuscript, and they are here introduced at the bottom of the page, in 
those parts to which they appear to have the nearest reference. — Ed.] 




CHAPTER I. 



CHAP. I.] PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL TRUTH, ETC. 



295 



I. "POLITICAL POWER IS RIGHTLY EXERCISED ONLY WHEN 

IT IS POSSESSED BY CONSENT OF THE COMMUNITY." 

Perfect liberty is desirable if it were consistent with the 
greatest degree of happiness. But it is not. Men find that, 
by giving up a part of their liberty, they are more happy than 
by retaining, or attempting to retain, the .whole. Government, 
whatever be its form, is the agent by winch the inexpedient 
portion of individual liberty is taken away. Men institute 
government for their own advantage, and because they find 
they are more happy with it than without it. This is the 
sole reason, in principle, how little soever it be adverted to in 
practice. Governors, therefore, are the officers of the public, 
in the proper sense of the word : not the slaves of the pub- 
lic ; for if they do not incline to conform to the public will, 
they are at liberty, like other officers, to give up their office. 
They are servants, in the same manner, and for the same pur- 
pose, as a solicitor is the servant of his client, and the physician 
of his patient. These are employed by the patient or the 
client voluntarily for his own advantage, and for nothing else. 
A nation, (not an individual, but a nation,) is under no other 
obligation to obedience, than that which arises from the con- 
viction that obedience is good for itself : — or rather, in more 
proper language, a nation is under no obligation to obedience at 
all. Obedience is voluntary. If they do not think it proper to 
obey — that is, if they are not satisfied with their officers — 
they are at liberty to discontinue their obedience, and to ap- 
point other officers instead. 

That which is thus true as an universal proposition, is as- 
serted with respect to this country by the present king :* — 
" The powers and prerogatives of the crown are vested there 
as a trust for the benefit of the people ; and they are sacred 
only as they are necessary to the preservation of that poise 
and balance of the constitution which experience has proved 
to be the best security of the liberty of the subject.''''] 

It is incidental to the office of the First public servants, 
that they should exercise authority over those by whom they 
are selected ; and hence probably, it has happened that the 
terms " public officer," " public servant," have excited such 
strange controversies in the world. Men have not maintained 
sufficient discrimination of ideas. Seeing that governors are 
great and authoritative, a man imagines it cannot be proper 
to say they are servants. Seeing that it is necessary and 

* George IV. t Letter when Prince of Wales, to Wm. Pitt. 

GifFord's life of Pitt, vol. 2. 



296 



PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL TRUTH, [ESSAY in. 



right that individuals should obey, he cannot entertain the 
notion that they are the servants of those whom they govern. 
The truth is, that governors are not the servants of individ- 
uals but of the community. They are the masters of indi- 
viduals, the servants of the public ; and if this simple dis- 
tinction had been sufficiently borne in mind, much perhaps 
of the vehement contention upon these matters had been 
avoided. 

But the idea of being a servant to the public, is quite con- 
sistent with the idea of exercising authority over them. 
The common language of a patient is founded upon similar 
grounds. He sends for a physician : — the physician comes 
at his desire — is paid for his services — and then the patient 
says, I am ordered to adopt a regimen, I am ordered to Italy ; 
— and he obeys, not because he may not refuse to obey if he 
chooses, but because he confides in the judgment of the phy- 
sician, and thinks that it is more to his benefit to be guided 
by the physician's judgment than by his own. But it will be 
said the physician cannot enforce his orders upon the patient 
against his will : neither I answer can the governor enforce 
his upon the public against theirs. No doubt Governors do 
sometimes so enforce them. What they do, however, and 
what they rightfully do, are separate considerations, and our 
business is only with the latter. 

Grotius argues that sovereign power may be possessed by 
governors, so that it shall not rightfully belong to the com- 
munity. He says, " From the Jewish as well as the Roman 
law it appears, that any one might engage himself in private 
servitude to whom he pleased. Now if an individual may do 
so, why may not a whole people, for the benefit of better 
government and more certain protection, completely transfer 
their sovereign rights to one or more persons without reserv- 
ing any portion to themselves ?"* I answer, no individual 
may do this : and, if he might, it would not serve the doc- 
trine in the case of nations. — It never can be right for a man 
to resign the absolute direction of his conduct to another, be- 
cause he must then do actions good or bad as that other might 
command — he must lie, or rob, or assassinate ; and of this 
common sense would pronounce the impropriety, if the Moral 
Law did not. And if you say a man ought not so to resign 
himself to another, then I answer, he does not transfer sover- 
eign power but retains it himself — which, in truth, ends the 
argument. 

But if the doctrine were sound for the individual, it is un- 
* Rights of War and Peace, b. 1. c. 3, s. 8. 



CHAP. I.] AND OF POLITICAL RECTITUDE. 297 

sound for a community. What is meant by the " transfer of 
their sovereign rights by a whole people ?" Is every man, 
woman, and child, in the country formally to sign the trans- 
fer ? If not, how shall a whole people transfer it ? At any 
rate, if they did, their resignation could not bind their chil- 
dren or successors. Besides, there is the same objection to 
this transfer of the sovereign power on the part of a nation 
as on the part of an individual. The thing is absurd in rea- 
son, and criminal in morals. 

Grotius illustrates his argument by " that authority to which 
a woman submits when she gives herself to her husband." 
But she does not submit to sovereign authority. He says 
again, " some powers are conferred for the sake of the gov- 
ernor, as the right of a master over a slave." But such pow- 
ers are never justly conferred. 

After all, these arguments do but establish in reality, the 
fundamental position. They assume that a people can re- 
sign the sovereign power ; which is the same thing as to ac- 
knowledge that they rightfully possess it. Grotius himself 
says, " A state is a perfect body of free men, united together 
in order to enjoy common rights and advantages."* 

It gives some anxiety to the mind of the writer, lest the 
reader should identify his principles with those of many who 
have asserted the " sovereignty of the people." This doc- 
trine has been insisted upon by persons who have mingled 
with it, or deduced from it, principles which the writer not 
merely rejects, but abhors. A doctrine is not unsound be- 
cause it has been advocated or perverted by bad men ; and it 
is neither rational nor honest to reprobate a truth because it 
has been viciously associated. GifTord, in his life of Pitt, 
complains of Fox, who by " a strange perversion of terms, 
and a confusion of intellect that would have disgraced even a 
schoolboy, called his sovereign the servant of the people." 
" This," says GifTord, " was a servile imitation of the French 
regicides, and a direct encouragement to all the theoretical 
reveries of all the disaffected in England." This is the spe- 
cies of association which I would deprecate : French regi- 
cides taught the doctrine, and disaffected theorists taught it. 
I am sorry that a truth should be so connected ; but it is not 
the less a truth. The " confusion of intellect" of which 
GifTord speaks, probably subsisted more in the writer than in 
Fox — for reasons which the reader has just seen, and because 
the biographer had probably confounded the doctrine with the 
conduct of some who supported it. The reader should prac- 
* Rights of War and Peace, 



298 



PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL TRUTH, [ESSAY III. 



tice a little of tlie power of abstraction, and detach accidental 
associations from truth itself. 

In reality, it cannot be asserted that the people do not right- 
fully possess the supreme power, without asserting that gov- 
ernors may do what they will, and be as tyrannical as they 
will. Who may prevent them ? The people ? Then the 
people hold the sovereign power. 

Many political constitutions have existed in which the gov- 
ernor was held to be absolutely the supreme power. The 
antiquity of such constitutions, or the regular succession of 
the existing governor, does not make his pretensions to this 
power just, because the principles on which it is ascertained 
that the people are supreme, are antecedent to all questions of 
usage, and superior to them. No injustice, therefore, is done 
— nothing wrong is done — in diminishing or taking away the 
power of an absolute monarch, notwithstanding the regularity 
of his pretensions to it. Yet other principles have been 
held : and it was said of Louis the Sixteenth, that as he 
" was the sole maker and executor of the laws," and as this 
power " had been exercised by him and by his ancestors for 
centuries without question or control, it was not in the power 
of the states to deprive him of any portion of it without his 
own consent." So that we are told that many millions of 
persons ought to be subject for ever to the vices or caprices 
of one man, in compliment to the fact that their predecessors 
had been subject before them.* He who maintains such doc- 
trine, surely forgets for what purpose government is instituted 
at all. 

The rule that " Political Power is rightly possessed only 
when it is possessed by consent of the community," neces- 
sarily applies to the choice of the person who is to exercise 
it. No man, and no set of men, rightly- govern unless they 
are preferred by the public to others. It is of no conse- 
quence that a people should formally select a president or a 
king. They continually act upon the principle without this. 
A people who are satisfied with their governor make, day by 

* We do not here defend the conduct of the states, or censure that of 
Louis ; we speak merely of the political Truth. That atrocious course 
of wickedness, the French Revolution, was occasioned by the abuses of 
the old government and its ramifications. The French people, unhap- 
pily, had neither virtue enough nor political knowledge enough, to reform 
these abuses by proper means. A revolution of some kind, and at some 
period, awaits, I doubt not, every despotic government in Europe and in 
the world. Happy will it be for those rulers who timely and wisely re- 
gard the irresistible progress of Public Opinion ! And happy for those 
communities which endeavour reformation only by virtuous means. 



CHAP. I.] AND OF POLITICAL RECTITUDE. 



299 



day, the choice of which we speak. They prefer him to all 
others ; they choose to be served by him rather than by any 
other ; and he, therefore, is virtually, though not formally, 
selected by the public. But, when we speak of the right of 
a particular person or family to govern a people, we speak, 
as of all other rights, in conditional language. The right 
consists in the preference which is given to him ; and exists 
no longer than that preference exists. If any governor were 
fully conscious that the community preferred another man or 
another kind of government, he ought to regard himself in 
the light of an usurper if he nevertheless continues to retain 
his power. Not that every government ought to dissolve it- 
self, or every governor to abdicate his office, because there 
is a general but temporary clamour against it. This is one 
thing — the steady deliberate judgment of the people is an- 
other. Is it too much to hope that the time may come when 
governments will so habitually refer to the purposes of gov- 
ernment, and be regulated by them, that they will not even 
wish to hold the reins longer than the people desire it ; and 
that nothing more will be needed for a quiet alteration than 
that the public judgment should be quietly expressed ? 

Political revolutions are not often favourable to the accurate 
illustration of political truth ; because, such is the moral con- 
dition of mankind, that they have seldom acted in conformity 
with it. Revolutions have commonly been the effect of the 
triumph of a party, or of the successes of physical power. Yet, 
if the illustration of these principles has not been accurate, 
the general position of the right of the people to select their 
own rulers has often been illustrated. In our own country, 
when James II. left the throne, the people filled it with an- 
other person, whose real title consisted in the choice of the 
people. James continued to talk of his rights to the crown ; 
but if William was preferred by the public, James was, what 
his son was afterwards called, a Pretender. The nonjurors 
appear to have acted upon erroneous principles, (except in- 
deed on the score of former oaths to James ; which, however, 
ought never to have been taken.) If we acquit them of mo- 
tives of party, they will appear to have entertained some no- 
tions of the rights of governors independently of the wishes 
of the people. At William's death, the nation preferred 
James's daughter to his son ; thus again elevating their judg- 
ments above all considerations of what the Pretender called 
his rights. Anne had then a right to the throne, and her 
brother had not. At the death of Anne, or rather in contem- 
plation of her death, the public had again to select their 



300 



PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL TRUTH, [ESSAY III. 



governor ; and they chose, not the immediate representative 
of the old family, but the Elector of Hanover ; and it is in 
virtue of the same choice, tacitly expressed at the present 
hour, that the heir of the Elector now fills the throne. 

[The habitual consciousness on the part of a legislature, 
that its authority is possessed in order to make it an efficient 
guardian and promoter of the general welfare and the general 
satisfaction, would induce a more mild and conciliating sys- 
tem of internal policy than that which frequently obtains. 
"Whether it has arisen from habit resulting from the violent 
and imperious character of international policy, or from that 
tendency to unkindness and overbearing which the con- 
sciousness of power induces, it cannot be doubted that meas- 
ures of government are frequently adopted and conducted 
with such a high hand as impairs the satisfaction of the gov- 
erned, and diminishes, by example, that considerate attention 
to the claims of others, upon which much of the harmony, 
and therefore the happiness of society consists. Govern- 
ments are too much afraid of conciliation. They too habit- 
ually suppose that mildness or concession indicates want of 
courage or want of power — that it invites unreasonable de- 
mands, and encourages encroachment and violence on the part 
of the governed. Man is not so intractable a being, or so in- 
sensible of the influence of candour and justice. In private 
life, he does not the most easily guide the conduct of his 
neighbours, who assumes an imperious, but he who assumes 
a temperate and mild demeanour. The best mode of govern- 
ing, and the most powerful mode too, is to recommend state 
measures to the judgment and the affections of a people. 
If this had been sufficiently done in periods of tranquillity, 
some of those conflicts which have arisen between govern- 
ments and the people had doubtless been prevented ; and gov- 
ernments had been spared the mortification of conceding that 
to violence which they refused to concede in periods of quiet. 
We should not wait for times of agitation to do that which 
Fox advised even at such a time, because at other periods it 
may be done with greater advantage and with a better grace. 
" It may be asked," says Fox, " what I would propose to do 
in times of agitation like the present 1 I will answer openly : 
— If there is a tendency in the Dissenters to discontent, what 
should I do ? I would instantly repeal the corporation and 
test acts, and take from them thereby all cause of complaint. 
If there were any persons tinctured with a republican spirit, 
I would endeavour to amend the representation of the Com- 
mons, and to prove that the House of Commons, though not 



CHAP. I.] AND OF POLITICAL RECTITUDE. 



301 



chosen by all, should have no other interest than to prove it- 
self the representative of all. If men were dissatisfied on 
account of disabilities or exemptions, &c, I would repeal the 
penal statutes, which are a disgrace to our law-books. If 
there were other complaints of grievance, I would redress 
them where they were really proved ; but, above all, I would 
constantly, cheerfully, patiently listen ; I would make it known, 
that if any man felt, or thought he felt a grievance, he might 
come freely to the bar of this House and bring his proofs. 
And it should be made manifest to all the world that where 
they did exist they should be redressed ; where not, it should 
be made manifest."* 

We need not consider the particular examples and measures 
which the statesman instanced. The temper and spirit is 
the thing. A government should do that of which every per- 
son would see the propriety in a private man ; if misconduct 
was charged upon him, show that the charge was unfounded ; 
or, being substantiated, amend his conduct.] 



II. " POLITICAL POWER IS RIGHTLY EXERCISED ONLY WHEN 

IT SUBSERVES THE WELFARE OF THE COMMUNITY." 

This proposition is consequent of the truth of the last. The 
community, which has the right to withhold power, delegates 
it, of course, for its own advantage. If in any case its advan- 
tage is not consulted, then the object for which it was dele- 
gated is frustrated ; or, in simple words, the measure which 
does not promote the public welfare is not right. It matters 
nothing whether the community have delegated specifically 
so much power for such and such purposes ; the power, being 
possessed, entails the obligation. Whether a sovereign de- 
rives absolute authority by inheritance, or whether a president 
is entrusted with limited authority for a year, the principles 
of their duty are the same. The obligation to employ it only 
for the public good, is just as real and just as great in one 
case as in the other. The Russian and the Turk have the 
same right to require that the power of their rulers shall be 
so employed as the Englishman or American. They may 
not be able to assert this right, but that does not affect its 
existence nor the ruler's duty, nor his responsibility to that 
Almighty Being before whom he must give an account of his 
stewardship. These reasonings, if they needed confirmation, 

* Fell's Memoirs of the Public Life of C. J. Fox. 
26 



302 r PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL TRUTH, [ESSAY III. 

derive it from the fact that the Deity imperatively requires 
us, according to our opportunities, to do good to man. 

But, how ready soever men are to admit the truth of this 
proposition, as a proposition, it is very commonly disregarded 
in practice ; and a vast variety of motives and objects direct 
the conduct of governments which have no connexion with 
the public weal. Some pretensions of consulting the public 
weal are, indeed, usual. It is not to be supposed that when 
public officers are pursuing their own schemes and interests, 
they will tell the people that they disregard theirs. When 
we look over the history of a Christian nation, it is found that 
a large proportion of these measures which are most prorni- 
ment in it, had little tendency to subserve, and did not sub- 
serve the public good. In practice, it is very often forgotten 
for what purpose governments are instituted. If a man were 
to look over twenty treaties, he would probably find that a 
half of them had very little to do with the welfare of the re- 
spective communities. He might find a great deal about 
Charles's rights, and Frederick's honour, and Louis's posses- 
sions, and Francis's interests, as if the proper subjects of in- 
ternational arrangements were those which respected rulers 
rather than communities. If a man looks over the state pa- 
pers which inform him of the origin of a war, he will probably 
find that they agitate questions about Most Christian and Most 
Catholic Kings, and High Mightinesses, and Imperial Majes- 
ties — questions, however, in which Frenchmen, and Spaniards, 
and Dutch, and Austrians, are very little interested or con- 
cerned, or at any rate much less interested than they are in 
avoiding the quarrel. 

Governments commonly trouble themselves unnecessarily 
and too much with the politics of other nations. A prince 
should turn his back towards other countries and his face 
towards his own — just as the proper place of a landholder is 
upon his own estates and not upon his neighbour's. If gov- 
ernments were wise, it would ere long be found that a great 
portion of the endless and wearisome succession of treaties, 
and remonstrances, and embassies, and alliances, and memo- 
rials, and subsidies, might be dispensed with, with so little 
inconvenience and so much benefit, that the world would 
Avonder to think to what futile ends they had been busying, 
and how needlessly they had been injuring themselves. 

No doubt, the immoral and irrational system of international 
politics which generally obtains, makes the path of one gov* 
eminent more difficult than it would otherwise be ; and yet it 
is probable that the most efficacious way of inducing another 



CHAP. I.] 



AND OF POLITICAL RECTITUDE. 



303 



government to attend to its proper business, would be to attend 
to ouj own. It is not sufficiently considered, nor indeed is 
it sufficiently known, how powerful is the influence of upright- 
ness and candour in conciliating the good opinion and the 
good offices of other men. Overreaching and chicanery in 
one person, induce overreaching and chicanery in another. 
Men distrust those whom they perceive to be unworthy of 
confidence. Real integrity is not without its voucher in the 
hearts of others ; and they who maintain it are treated with 
confidence, because it is seen that confidence can be safely 
reposed. Besides, he who busies himself with the politics 
of foreign countries, like the busy bodies in a petty commu- 
nity, does not fail to offend. In the last century, our own 
country was so much of a busy body, and had involved itself 
in such a multitude of treaties and alliances, that it was found, 
I believe, quite impossible to fulfil one, without, by that very 
act, violating another. This, of course, would offend. In 
private life, that man passes through the world with the least 
annoyance and the greatest satisfaction, who confines his at- 
tention to its proper business, that is, generally, to his own : 
and who can tell why the experience of nations should in this 
case be different from that of private men ? In a rectified 
state of international affairs, half a dozen princes on a conti- 
nent would have little more occasion to meddle with one an- 
other than half a dozen neighbours in a street. 

But indeed, Communities frequently contribute to their own 
injury. If governors are ambitious, or resentful, or proud, so, 
often, are the people ; — and the public good has often been 
sacrificed by the public, with astonishing preposterousness, 
to jealousy or vexation. Some merchants are angry at the 
loss of a branch of trade ; they urge the government to inter- 
fere ; memorials and remonstrances follow to the state of 
whom they complain ; — and so, by that process of exaspera- 
tion which is quite natural when people think that high lan- 
guage and a high attitude is politic, the nations soon begin to 
fight. The merchants applaud the spirit of their rulers, while 
in one year they lose more by the war than they would have 
lo.st by the want of the trade for twenty ; and before peace 
returns, the nation has lost more than it would have lost by 
the continuance of the evil for twenty centuries. Peace at 
length arrives, and the government begins to devise means of 
repairing the mischiefs of the war. Both government and 
people reflect very complacently on the wisdom of their mea- 
sures — forgetting that their conduct is only that of a man who 



304 



PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL TRUTH, [ESSAY III. 



wantonly fractures his own leg with a club, and then boasts 
to his neighbours how dexterously he limps to a surges. 

Present expedients for present occasions, rather than a 
wide-embracing and far-seeing policy, is the great character- 
istic of European politics. We are hucksters who cannot 
resist the temptation of a present sixpence, rather than mer- 
chants who wait for their profits for the return of a fleet. Si 
quseris monumentum, circumspice ! Look at the condition of 
either of the continental nations, and consider what it might 
have been if even a short line of princes had attended to their 
proper business — had directed their solicitude to the improve- 
ment of the moral, and social, and political condition of the 
people. Who has been more successful in this huckster 
policy than France ? and what is France, and what are the 
French people at the present hour ? — Why, as it respects real 
welfare, they are not merely surpassed, they are left at an 
immeasurable distance by a people who sprung up but as 
yesterday — by a people whose land, within the memory of 
our grandfathers, was almost a wilderness — and which actu- 
ally was a wilderness long since France boasted of her great- 
ness. Such results have a cause. It is not possible that 
systems of policy can be good, of which the effects are so 
bad. I speak not of particular measures, or of individual acts 
of ill policy — these are not likely to be the result of the con- 
dition of man — but of the whole international system ; a sys- 
tem of irritability, and haughtiness, and temporary expedients ; 
a system of most unphilosophical principles, and from which 
Christianity is practically almost excluded. Here is the evi- 
dence of fact before us. We know what a sickening detail 
the history of Europe is ; and it is obvious to remark, that 
the system which has given rise to such a history must be 
vicious and mistaken in its fundamental principles. The same 
class of history will continue to after generations unless these 
principles are changed — unless philosophy and Christianity 
obtain a greater influence in the practice of government ; un- 
less, in a word, governments are content to do their proper 
business, and to leave that which is not their business undone. 

When such principles are acted upon, we may reasonably 
expect a rapid advancement in the whole condition of the 
world. Domestic measures which are now postponed to the 
more stirring occupations of legislators, will be found to be of 
incomparably greater importance than they. A wise code of 
criminal law, will be found to be of more consequence and 
interest than the acquisition of a million square miles of terri- 
tory: — a judicious encouragement of general education, will 



CHAP. I.] AND OF POLITICAL RECTITUDE. 



305 



be of more value than all the " glory" that has been acquired 
from the days of Alfred till now. Of moral legislation, how- 
ever, it will be our after business to speak ; meanwhile the 
lover of mankind has some reason for gratulation, in perceiv- 
ing indications that governments will hereafter direct their 
attention more to the objects for which they are invested with 
power. The statesman who promotes this improvement will 
be what many statesmen have been called — a great man. 
That government only is great which promotes the prosperity 
of its own people ; and that people only are prosperous, who 
are wise and happy. 



III. — "political power is rightly exercised only 

WHEN IT SUBSERVES THE WELFARE OF THE COMMUNITY 
BY MEANS WHICH THE MORAL LAW PERMITS." 

It has been said by a Christian writer, that " the science 
of politics is but a particular application of that of morals ;" 
and it has been said by a writer who rejected Christianity, 
that " the morality that ought to govern the conduct of individ- 
uals and oT nations, is in all cases the same." If there be 
truth in the principles which are advanced in the first of these 
Essays, these propositions are indisputably true. It is the 
chief purpose of the present work to enforce the supremacy 
of the Moral Law ; and to this supremacy there is no excep- 
tion in the ease of nations. In the conduct of nations this 
supremacy is practically denied, although, perhaps, few of 
those who make it subservient to other purposes would deny 
it in terms. With their lips they honour the doctrine, but in 
their works they deny it. Such procedures must be expected 
to produce much self-contradiction, much vacillation between 
the truth and the wish to disregard it, much vagueness of 
notions respecting political rectitude, and much casuistry to 
educe something like a justification of what cannot be justified. 
Let the reader observe an illustration : — A moral philosopher 
says, " The Christian principles of love, and forbearance, and 
kindness, strictly as they are to be observed between man and 
man, are to be observed with precisely the same strictness be- 
tween nation and nation" This is an unqualified assertion of 
the truth. But the writer thinks it would carry him too far, 
and so he makes exceptions. " In reducing to practice the 
Christian principles of forbearance, &c, it will not be always 
feasible, nor always sa|je, to proceed to the same extent as in 
acting towards an individual." Let the reader exercise his 

26* 



306 



PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL TRUTH, [ESSAY III. 



skill in casuistry, by showing the difference between conform- 
ing to laws with " precise strictness," and conforming to them 
in their " full extent." — Thus far Christianity and Expediency 
are proposed as our joint governors. — We must observe the 
Moral Law, but still we must regulate our observance of it by 
considerations of what is feasible and safe. Presently after- 
wards, however, Christianity is quite dethroned, and we are 
to observe its laws only " so far as national ability and national 
security will permit.' 5 * — So that our rule of political conduct 
stands at length thus : obey Christianity with precise strictness 
' — when it suits your interests. 

The reasoning by which such doctrines are supported, is 
such as it might be expected to be. We are told of the " cau- 
tion requisite in affairs of such magnitude — the great uncer- 
tainty of the future conduct of the other nation" — and of " pa- 
triotism." — So that, because the affairs are of great magnitude, 
the laws of the Deity are not to be observed ! It is all very 
well, it seems, to observe them in little matters, but for our 
more important concerns we want rules commensurate with 
their dignity — we cannot then be bound by the laws of God ! 
The next reason is, that we cannot foresee " the juture con- 
duct" of a nation. — Neither can we that of an individual. 
Besides this, inability to foresee inculcates the very lesson 
that we ought to observe the laws of Him who can foresee. 
It is a strange thing to urge the limitation of our powers of 
judgment, as a reason for substituting it for the judgment of 
Him whose powers are perfect. Then " patriotism" is a rea- 
son : and we are to be patriotic to our country at the expense 
of treason to our religion ! 

The princples upon which these reasonings are founded, 
lead to their legitimate results : " In war and negotiation," 
says Adam Smith, " the laws of justice are very seldom ob- 
served. Truth and fair dealing are almost totally disregarded. 
Treaties are violated, and the violation, if some advantage is 
gained by it, sheds scarce any dishonour upon the violator. 
The ambassador who dupes the minister of a foreign nation, 
is admired and applauded. The just man, the man who in 
all private transactions would be the most beloved and the 
most esteemed in those public transactions is regarded as a 
fool and an idiot, who does not understand his business ; and 
he incurs always the contempt, and sometimes even the detes- 
tation, of his fellow citizens."! 

Now, against all such principles — against all endeavours to 

* Gisborae's Moral Philosophy. * t Theory of Moral Senti- 

ments. 



CHAP. I.] 



AND OF POLITICAL RECTITUDE. 



307 



defend the rejection of the Moral Law in political affairs, we 
would with all emphasis protest. The reader sees that it is 
absurd : — can he need to be convinced that it is unchristian ? 
Christianity is of paramount authority, or another authority is 
superior. He who holds another authority as superior, rejects 
Christianity ; and the fair and candid step would be avowedly 
to reject it. He should say, in distinct terms — Christianity 
throws some light on political principles ; but its laws are to 
be held subservient to our interests. This were far more sa- 
tisfactory than the trimming system, the perpetual vacillation 
of obedience to two masters, and the perpetual endeavour to 
do that which never can be done — serve both. 

Jesus Christ legislated for man — not for individuals only, 
not for families only, not for Christian churches only, but for 
man in all his relationships and in all his circumstances. He 
legislated for states. In his moral law we discover no indi- 
cations that states were exempted from its application, or 
that any rule which bound social did not bind political com- 
munities. If any exemption were designed, the onus probandi 
rests upon those who assert it : unless they can show that the 
Christian precepts are not intended to apply to nations, the 
conclusion must .be admitted that they are. But in reality, to 
except nations from the obligations is impossible ; for nations 
are composed of individuals, and if no individual may reject 
the Christian morality, a nation may not. Unless, indeed, it 
can be shown that when you are an agent for others you may 
do what neither yourself nor any of them might do separately 
— a proposition of which certainly the proof must be required 
to be very clear and strong. 

But the truth is, that those who justify a suspension of 
Christian morality in political affairs, are often unwilling to 
reason distinctly and candidly upon the subject. They satisfy 
themselves with a jest, or a sneer, or a shrug ; being unwilling 
either to contemn morality in politics, or to practise it : and 
it is to little purpose to offer arguments to him who does not 
need conviction, but virtue. 

Expediency is the rock upon which we split — upon which, 
strange as it appears, not only our principles but our interests 
suffer continual shipwreck. It has been upon Expediency 
that European politics have so long been founded, with such 
lamentably inexpedient effects. We consult our interests so 
anxiously that we ruin them. But we consult them blindly : 
we do not know our interests, nor shall we ever know them 
whilst we continue to imagine that we know them better than 
He who legislated for the world. Here is the perpetual follv 



308 



PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL TRUTH, [ESSAY III. 



as well as the perpetual crime. Esteeming ourselves wise, 
we have, emphatically, been fools — of which no other evi- 
dence is necessary than the present political condition of 
the Christian world. If ever it was true of any human being, 
that by his deviations from rectitude he had provided scourges 
for himself, it is true at this hour of every nation in Europe. 

Let us attend to this declaration of a man who, whatever 
may have been the value of his general politics, was certainly 
a great statesman here : " I am one of those who firmly be- 
lieve, as much indeed as a man can believe any thing, that 
the greatest resource a nation can possess, the surest principle 
of power, is strict attention to the principles of justice. I 
firmly believe that the common proverb of honesty being the 
best policy, is as applicable to nations as to individuals." — 
" In all interference with foreign nations justice is the best 
foundation of policy, and moderation is the surest pledge of 
peace." — " If therefore we have been deficient in justice to- 
wards other states, we have been deficient in wisdom."* 

Here, then, is the great truth for which we would contend 
— to be unjust is to be unwise. And since justice is not im- 
posed upon nations more really than other branches of the 
Moral Law, the universal maxim is equally true — to deviate 
from purity of rectitude is impolitic as well as wrong. When 
will this truth be learnt and be acted upon ? When shall we 
cast away the contrivances of a low and unworthy policy, 
and dare the venture of the consequences of virtue 1 When 
shall we, in political affairs, exercise a little of that confidence 
in the knowledge and protection of God, which we are ready 
to admire in individual life ? — Not that it is to be assumed as 
certain that such fidelity would cost nothing. Christianity 
makes no such promise. But whatever it might cost it would 
be worth the purchase. And neither reason nor experience 
allows the doubt that a faithful adherence to the Moral Law 
would more effectually serve national interests, than they have 
ever yet been served by the utmost sagacity whilst violating 
that law. 

The contrivances of expediency have become so habitual 
to measures of state, that it may probably be thought the 
dreamings of a visionary to suppose it possible that they 
should be substituted by purity of rectitude. And yet I be- 
lieve it will eventually be done — not perhaps by the resolution 
of a few cabinets — it is not from them that reformation is to 
be expected — but by the gradual advance of sound principles 
upon the minds of men ; — principles which will assume more 
* Fell's Memoirs of the Public Life of C. J. Fox. 



CHAP. I.] AND OF POLITICAL RECTITUDE. 



309 



and more their rightful influence in the world, until at length 
the low contrivances of a fluctuating and immoral policy will 
be substituted by firm, and consistent, and invariable integrity. 

The convention- of what is called the Holy Alliance, was 
an extraordinary event ; and little as the contracting parties 
may have acted in conformity with it, and little as they or 
their people were prepared for such a change of principles, 
it is a subject of satisfaction that such a state paper exists. 
It contains a testimony at least to virtue and to rectitude ; and 
even if we should suppose it to be utterly hypocritical, the 
testimony is just as real. Hypocrisy commonly affects a 
character which it ought to maintain : and the act of hypoc- 
risy is homage to the character. In this view, I say, it is 
subject of some satisfaction that a document exists which de- 
clares that these powerful princes have come to a " fixed re- 
solution, both in the administration of their respective states, 
and in their political relations with every other government, 
to take for their sole guide the precepts of the Christian re- 
ligion — the precepts of Justice, Christian Charity, and Peace :" 
and which declares that these principles, " far from being ap- 
plicable only to private concerns, must have an immediate in- 
fluence on the councils of princes, as being the only means 
of consolidating human institutions, and remedying their im- 
perfections." 

The time, it may be hoped, will arrive when such a de- 
claration will be the congenial and natural result of princi- 
ples that are actually governing the Christian world. Mean- 
time, let the philosopher and the statesman keep that period 
in their view, and endeavour to accelerate its approach. He 
who does this, will secure a fame for himself that will in- 
crease and still increase as the virtue of man holds its onward 
course, while multitudes of the great both of past ages and 
of the present, will become beacons to warn, rather than ex- 
amples to stimulate us. 



310 CIVIL LIBERTY. [ESSAY III. 

CHAPTER II. 

CIVIL LIBERTY. 

Loss of Liberty — War — Useless laws. 

Of personal liberty we say nothing, because its full posses- 
sion is incompatible with the existence of society. All gov- 
ernment supposes the relinquishment of a portion of personal 
liberty. 

Civil Liberty may, however, be fully enjoyed. It is en- 
joyed, where the principles of political truth and rectitude are 
applied in practice, because there the people are deprived of 
that portion only of liberty which it would be pernicious to them- 
selves to possess. If political power is possessed by consent 
of the community ; if it is exercised only for their good ; and 
if this welfare is consulted by Christian means, the people 
are free. No man can define the particular enjoyments or 
exemptions which constitute civil liberty, because they are 
contingent upon the circumstances of the respective nations. 
A degree of restraint may be necessary for the general wel- 
fare of one community, which would be wholly unnecessary 
in another. Yet the first would have no reason to complain 
of their want of civil liberty. The complaint, if any be made, 
should be of the evils which make the restraint necessary. 
The single question is, whether any given degree of restraint 
is necessary or not. If it is, though the restraint may be 
painful, the civil liberty of the community may be said to be 
complete. It is useless to say that it is less complete than 
that of another nation; for complete civil liberty is a re- 
lative and not a positive enjoyment. Were it otherwise, no 
people enjoy, or are likely for ages to enjoy full civil liberty ; 
because none enjoy so much that they could not, in a more 
virtuous state of mankind, enjoy more. " It is not the rigour, 
but the inexpediency of laws and acts of authority, which 
makes them tyrannical."* 

Civil liberty (so far as its present enjoyment goes) does not 
necessarily depend upon forms of government. All commu- 
nities enjoy it who are properly governed. It may be enjoy- 
ed under an absolute monarch ; as we know it may not be 
enjoyed under a republic. Actual, existing liberty, depends 
upon the actual, existing administration. 

One great cause of diminutions of civil liberty is War ; 

* Paley : Mor. and Pol. Phil. p. 3, b. 6, c. 5. 




CHAP. II.] 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 



311 



and if no other motive induced a people jealously to scrutinize 
the grounds of a war, this might be sufficient. The increased 
loss of personal freedom to a military man is manifest ; — and 
it is considerable to other men. The man who now pays 
twenty pounds a-year in taxes, would probably have paid but 
two if there had been no war during the past century. If he 
now gets a hundred and fifty pounds a-year by his exer- 
tions, he is obliged to labour six weeks out of the flty-two, to 
pay the taxes which war has entailed. That is to say, he is 
compelled to work two hours every day longer than he him- 
self wishes, or than is needful for his support. This is a ma- 
terial deduction from personal liberty, and a man would feel 
it as such, if the coercion were directly applied — if an officer 
came to his house every afternoon at four o'clock, when he 
had finished his business, and obliged him, under penalty of 
a distraint, to work till six. It is some loss of liberty, again, 
to a man to be unable to open as many windows in his house 
as he pleases — or to be forbidden to acknowledge the receipt 
of a debt without going to the next town for a stamp — or to 
be obliged to ride in an uneasy carriage unless he will pay 
for springs. It were to no purpose to say he may pay for 
windows and springs if he will, and if he can. — A slave may, 
by the same reasoning, be shown to be free ; because, if he 
will and if he can, he may purchase his freedom. There is 
a loss of liberty in being obliged to submit to the alternative ; 
and we should feel it as a loss if such things were not habit- 
ual, and if we had not receded so considerably from the lib- 
erty of nature. A housewife on the Ohio would think it a 
strange invasion of her liberty, if she were told that hence- 
forth the police would be sent to her house to seize her goods 
if she made any more soap to wash her clothes. 

Now, indeed, that war has created a large public debt, it is 
necessary to the general good that its interest should be paid : 
and in this view a man's civil liberty is not encroached upon, 
though his personal liberty is diminished. The public wel- 
fare is consulted by the diminution. I may deplore the cause 
without complaining of the law. It may, upon emergency, 
be for the public good to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act. I 
should lament that such a state of things existed, but I should 
not complain that civil liberty was invaded. The lesson 
which such considerations teach, is, jealous watchfulness 
against wars for the future. 

There are many other acts of governments by which civil 
liberty is needlessly curtailed — among which may be reckoned 
the number of laws. Every law implies restriction. To be 



312 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 



[essay III. 



destitute of laws is to be absolutely free : to multiply laws is 
to multiply restrictions, or, which is the same thing, to dimin- 
ish liberty. A great number of penal statutes lately existed 
in this country, by which the reasonable proceedings of a 
prosecutor were cramped, and impeded, and thwarted. - A 
statesman to whom England is much indebted, has supplied 
their place by one which is more rational and more simple ; 
and prosecutors now find that they are so much more able to 
consult their own understandings in their proceedings, that it 
may, without extravagance, be said, that our civil liberty is 
increased. 

" A law being found to produce no sensible good effects, is 
a sufficient reason for repealing it."* It is not, therefore, suf- 
ficient to ask in reply, what harm does the law occasion ? for 
you must prove that it is does good : because all laws which 
do no good, do harm. They encroach upon or restrain the 
liberty of the community, without that reason which only can 
make the deduction of any portion of liberty right — the pub- 
lic good. If this rule were sufficiently attended to, perhaps 
more than a few of the laws of England would quickly be 
repealed. 



CHAPTER III. 

POLITICAL LIBERTY. 

Political Liberty the right of a community — Public satisfaction. 

This is, in strictness, a branch of civil liberty. Political 
liberty implies the existence of such political institutions as 
secure, with the greatest practicable certainty, the future pos- 
session of freedom — the existence of which institutions is 
one of the requisites, in a general sense, of Civil liberty ; be- 
cause it is as necessary to proper government that securities 
for freedom should be framed, as that present freedom should 
be permitted. 

The possession of political liberty is of great importance. 
A Russian may enjoy as great a share of personal freedom as 
an Englishman ; that is, he may find as few restrictions upon 
the exercise of his own will; but he has no security for the 

* Paley : Mor. and Pol. Phil, p 3, b. 6, c. 5. 



CHAP. III.] 



POLITICAL LIBERTY. 



313 



continuance of this. For aught that he knows, he may be 
arbitrarily thrown into prison to-morrow ; and therefore, though 
he may live and die without molestation, he is politically en- 
slaved. When it is considered how much human happiness 
depends upon the security of enjoying happiness in future, such 
institutions as those of Russia are great grievances ; and 
Englishmen, though they may regret the curtailment of some 
items of civil liberty, have much comparative reason to think 
themselves politically free. 

The possession of political liberty is unquestionably a right 
of a community. They may, with perfect reason require it 
even of governments which actually govern well. It is not 
enough for a government to say, none but beneficial laws and 
acts of authority are adopted. It must, if it would fulfil the 
duties of a government, accumulate, to the utmost, securities 
for beneficial measures hereafter. In this view, it may be 
feared that no government in Europe fulfils all its duty to the 
people. 

And here considerations are suggested respecting the repre- 
sentation of a people — a point which, if some political writers 
were to be listened to, was a sine qua non of political liberty. 
" To talk of an abstract right of equal representation is absurd. 
It is to arrogate a right to one form of government, whereas 
Providence has accommodated the different forms of govern- 
ment to the different states of society in which they subsist."* 
If an inhabitant of Birmingham should come and tell me that 
he and his neighbours were debarred of political liberty be- 
cause they sent no representatives to parliament, I should say 
that the justness of his complaint was problematical. It does 
not follow because a man is not represented, that he is not 
politically free. The question is, whether as good securities 
for liberty exist, without permitting him to vote, as with it. 
If it can be shown that the present legislative government af- 
fords as good a security for the future freedom of the people 
as any other that might be devised, the inhabitant of Birming- 
ham enjoys, at present, political liberty. It is a very common 
mistake amongst writers to assume some particular privilege 
or institution as a test of this liberty — as something without 
which it cannot be enjoyed ; and yet I suppose there is no 
one of their institutions or privileges under which it would 
not be possible to enslave a people. Simple republicanism, 
universal suffrage, and frequent elections, might afford no bet- 
ter security for civil liberty than absolute monarchy. In fine, 
political liberty is not a matter that admits of certain conclu- 
* William Pitt : Gifford's Life, vol. 3. 
27 



314 



RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 



[ESSAY III. 



sions from theoretical reasoning ; it is a question of facts ; a 
question to be decided, like questions of philosophy, by rea- 
soning founded upon experience. If the inhabitant of Bir- 
mingham can show, from relevant experience, good ground to 
conclude that greater security for liberty would be derived 
from extending the representation, he has reason to complain 
of an undue privation of political liberty if it is not extended. 

But, then, it is always incumbent upon the legislature to 
prove the probable superiority of the existing institutions 
when any considerable portion of the people desire an altera- 
tion. That desire constitutes a claim to investigation ; and 
to an alteration, too, unless the existing institutions appear to 
be superior to those which are desired. It is not enough to 
show that they are as good ; for though in other respects the 
two plans were equally balanced, the present are not so good 
as the others if they give less satisfaction to the community. 
To be satisfied is one great ingredient in the welfare of a 
people ; and in whatever degree a people are not satisfied, in 
the same degree civil government does not perfectly effect its 
proper ends. To deny satisfaction to a people without show- 
ing a reason, is to withhold from them the due portion of civil 
liberty. 



CHAPTER IV. 

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 

Civil disabilities — Interference of the Magistrate — Pennsylvania — Tolera- 
tion — America — Creeds — Religious Tests — " The Catholic Question." 

The magistrate may advert to subjects connected with re- 
ligion so far as the public good requires and as Christianity 
permits ; or, upon these, as upon other subjects, he may en- 
deavour to promote the welfare of the people by Christian 
means . What the public welfare does require, and what means 
for promoting it are Christian, are separate considerations. 

Upon which grounds those advocates of religious liberty 
appear to assert too much, who assert, as a fundamental prin- 
ciple, that a government never has, nor can have, any just 
concern, with religious opinions. Unless these persons can 
show that no advertence to them is allowed by Christianity, 



CHAP. IV.] 



RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 



315 



and that none can contribute to the public good, circumstances 
may arise in which an advertence would be right. No one 
perhaps will deny that a government may lawfully provide for 
the education of the people, and endeavour to diffuse just no- 
tions and principles, moral and religious, into the public mind. 
A government, therefore, may endeavour to discountenance 
unsound notions and principles. It may as reasonably dis- 
courage what is wrong, as cherish what is right. 

But by what means ? By influencing opinions, not by pun- 
ishing persons who hold them. When a man publishes a 
book or delivers a lecture for the purpose of enlightening the 
public mind, he does well. A government may take kindred 
measures for the same purpose, and it does well. But this is 
all. If our author or lecturer, finding his opinions were not 
accepted, should proceed to injure those who rejected them, 
he would act, not only irrationally but immorally. If a gov- 
ernment, finding its measures do not influence or alter the 
views of the people, injures those who reject its sentiments, 
it acts immorally too. A man's opinions are not alterable at 
his own will ; and it is not right to injure a man for doing 
that which he cannot avoid. Besides, in religious matters 
especially, it is the Christian duty of a man, first, to seek 
truth ; and next, to adhere to those opinions which truth, as 
he believes, teaches. And so again, it is not right to injure a 
man for doing that which it is his duty to do. When, therefore, 
it is affirmed, at the head of this chapter, that the magistrate 
may advert to subjects connected with religion, nothing more 
is to be understood than that he may endeavour to diffuse just 
sentiments, and to expose the contrary. To do more than 
this, although he may think his measures may promote the 
public welfare, would be to endeavour to promote it " by means 
which the Moral Law forbids." 

To inflict civil disabilities is " to do more than this" — it is 
to injure a man for doing that which he cannot avoid," and 
"that which it is his duty to do." Here, indeed, a sophism 
has been resorted to, in order to show that disabilities are not 
injuries. It is said of the Dissenters of this country, that no 
penalty is inflicted upon them by excluding them from offices 
— that the state confers certain offices upon certain conditions, 
with which conditions a dissenter does not comply. And it 
is said that this is no more a penalty or a hardship than, when 
the law defines what pecuniary qualifications capacitate a man 
for a seat in parliament, it inflicts a penalty upon those who 
do not possess them. I answer, Both are penalties and hard- 
ships — and that the argument only attempts to justify one ill 



316 



RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 



[ESSAY. III. 



practice by the existence of another. It will be said that 
such regulations are necessary to the public good. — Bring 
the proof. Here is a certain restraint : " The proof of the 
advantage of a restraint," says Dr. Paley, " lies upon the legis- 
lature." Unless, therefore, you can show — what to me is 
extremely problematical — that the public is benefited by a law 
that excludes a poor man from the legislature — the argument 
wholly fails. Consider for what purpose men unite in society 
■ — " in order," says Grotius, " to enjoy common rights and 
advantages" — of which rights and advantages, eligibility to a 
representative body is one. Those principles of political rec- 
titude which determine that a law which needlessly restrains 
natural liberty is wrong, determine that a law which needlessly 
restrains the enjoyment of the privileges of society, is wrong 
also. It is therefore not true that a dissenter suffers no hard- 
ship or penalty on account of his opinions. The only differ- 
ence between disabilities and ordinary penalties is this, that 
one inflicts evil, and the other withholds good ; and both are, 
to all intents and purposes, penalties. 

But even if the legislator thought he could show that the 
public were benefited by this penalty, upon conscientious dis- 
sidents, it would not be sufficient — for the penalty itself is 
wrong — it is not Christian ; and it is vain to argue that an 
unchristian act can be made lawful by prospects of advantage. 
Here, as every where else, we must maintain the supremacy 
of the Moral Law. 

All these reasonings proceed upon the supposition that a 
man does not, in consequence of his opinions, disturb the 
peace of society by any species of violence. If he does, he 
is doubtless to be restrained. It may not be more necessary 
for the magistrate to enquire what are a man's opinions of 
religion, than for a rider to enquire what are the cogitations 
of his horse. So long as my horse carries me well, it matters 
nothing to me whether he be thinking of safe paces, or of 
meadows and corn chests. So long as the welfare of the 
public is secured, it matters nothing to the magistrate what 
notion of Christianity a citizen accepts. But if my horse, in 
his anxiety to get into a meadow, leaps over a hedge, and im- 
pedes me in my journey, it is needful that I employ the whip 
and bridle : and if the citizen, in his zeal for opinions, violates 
the general good, it is needful that he should be punished or 
restrained. And even then, he is not restrained for his opin- 
ions but for his conduct ; just as I do not apply the whip to 
my horse because he loves a meadow, but because he goes 
out of the road. 



CHAP. IV.] 



RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 



317 



And even in the case of conduct, it is needful to discrimin- 
ate, accurately, what is a proper subject of animadversion, 
and what is not. I perceive no truth in the ingenious argu- 
ment, " that a man may entertain opinions however pernicious, 
but he may not be allowed to disseminate them ; as a man 
may keep poison in his house, but may not be allowed to give 
it to others as wholesome medicine." To support this argu- 
ment you must have recourse to a petitio principii. How do 
you know that an opinion is pernicious 1 By reasoning and 
examination, if at all ; and that is the very end which the 
dissemination of an opinion attains. If the truth or falsehood 
of an opinion were demonstrable to the senses, as the mis- 
chief of poison is, there would be some justness in the argu- 
ment ; but it is not : except, indeed, that there may be opin- 
ions so monstrous, that they immediately manifest their 
unsoundness by their effects on the conduct ; and, if they do 
this, these effects and not the dissemination of the opinion, 
are the proper subject of animadversion. The doctrine, that 
a man ought not to be punished for disseminating whatever 
opinions he pleases, upon whatever subject, will receive some 
illustration in a future chapter. Meantime, the reader will, 
I hope, be. prepared to admit, at least, that the religious opin- 
ions which obtain amongst Christian churches, are not such 
as to warrant the magistrate in visiting those who disseminate 
them with any kind of penalty. — What the magistrate may 
punish, and what an individual ought to do, are very different 
considerations : and though there is reason to think that no 
man should be punished by human laws for disseminating 
vicious notions, it is to be believed that those who consciously 
do it will be held far other than innocent at the bar of God. 

All reference to creeds in framing laws for a general society 
is wrong. And it is somewhat humiliating that, in the pres- 
ent age, and in our country, it is necessary to establish this 
proposition by formal proof. It is humiliating, because it 
shows us how slow is the progress of sound principles upon 
the human mind, even when they are not only recommended 
by reason, but enforced by experience. It is now nearly a 
century and a half since one of our own colonies adopted a 
system of religious liberty, which far surpassed that of the 
parent state at the present hour. And this system was suc- 
cessful, not negatively, in that it produced no evil, but posi- 
tively, in that it produced much good. One hundred and fifty 
years is a long time for a nation to be learning a short and 
plain lesson. In Pennsylvania, in addition to a complete tol- 
eration of " Jews, Turks, Catholics, and people of all persua- 

27* 



318 



RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 



[essay III. 



sions in religion,"* there was no disability or test exacted of 
any professor of the Christian faith. " All persons," says 
Burke, " who profess to believe in one God, are freely toler- 
ated. Those who believe in Jesus Christ, of whatever de- 
nomination, are not excluded from employments and posts. "f 
The wisdom or justice of excluding those who were not 
Christians from employments and posts may be doubted. 
Penn, however, did much ; and far outstripped in enlightened 
institutions the general example of the world. If he had 
lived in the present day, it is not improbable that a mind like 
his would have seen no better reason for excluding those who 
disbelieved Christianity, than those who believed it imper- 
fectly or by parts. The consequences, we say, were happy. 
Burke says again of Penn, " He made the most perfect free- 
dom, both religious and civil, the basis of his establishment ; 
and this has done more towards the settling of the province, 
and towards the settling of it in a strong and permanent man- 
ner, than the wisest regulations could have done on any other 
plan. "J — " By the favourable terms," says Morse, " which 
Mr. Penn offered to settlers, and an unlimited toleration of all 
religious denominations, the population of the province was 
extremely rapid. And yet England is, at this present hour, 
doubting and disputing whether tests are right ! 

Nor is example wanted at the present day — " In America, 
the question is not, What is his creed ? but, What is his con- 
duct ? Jews have all the privileges of Christians — No reli- 
gious test is required to qualify for public office ; except in 
some cases, a mere verbal assent to the truth of the Christian 
religion. While I was in New York," adds Duncan, " the 
sheriff of the city was a Jew."|| It is in vain to make any 
objection to the argument which these facts urge, unless we 
can show that the effect is not good. And where is the man 
who will even affect to do this ? But if it should be said that 
what is wise and expedient with such national institutions as 
those of America, would be unwise and inexpedient with such 
institutions as those of England or of Spain, it will become a 
most grave enquiry, whether the fault does not lie with the 
institutions that are not adapted to religious liberty : — for re- 
ligious liberty is assuredly adapted to man. 

Observe what absurdities this sacrifice of universal rectitude 
to particular institutions occasions. There may be ten na- 

* Clarkson's Life of Penn. 

t Account of the European Settlements in America. t Ibid- 

§ American Geography. See also Anderson's Deduction of the Origin 
of Commerce. || Duncan's travels in America. 



CHAP. I V.J 



RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 



319 



tions on a continent, each of which selects a different creed 
for its preference, and excludes all others. The first excludes 
all but Catholics — the second all but Episcopalians — the third 
all but Unitarians — the fourth all but the Greek Church ; and 
so on with the rest. If it be right that Unitarians should be 
intrusted with power on one side of a river, can it be right 
that they shall not be intrusted with it on the other ? Or, if 
such an absurdity be really conducive to the support of the 
incongruous institutions of the several states, is it not an evi- 
dence that those institutions need to be amended ? And are 
not the principles of perfect religious liberty, nevertheless, 
sound and true ? 

Englishmen have not to complain of a want of Toleration. 
But toleration is a word which ought scarcely to be heard out 
of a Christanrs mouth. I tolerate the religion of my brother ! 
I might as well say I tolerate the continuance of his head 
upon his shoulders. I have no more right to hold his creed at 
my disposal, or his person in consequence of his creed, than his 
head. The idea of toleration is a relic of the effects of the 
papal usurpation. That usurpation did not tolerate : and Pro- 
testants thought it was a great thing for them to do what the 
papacy had thus refused. And so it was. It was a great 
thing/or them. Very imperfectly, however, they did it ; and 
it was a great thing for Penn, who was brought up in a land 
of intolerant Protestants, to declare universal toleration for 
all within his borders. But — (and we may reverently say, 
Thanks be to God!) — we live in happier times. AVe have 
advanced from intolerance to toleration ; and now it is time to 
advance from toleration to Religious Liberty : to that religious 
liberty which excludes all reference to creeds from the civil 
institutions of a people. 

The reader will perhaps have observed, that Religious 
Liberty and Religious Establishments are incompatible things. 
An establishment presupposes incomplete religions liberty. 
If an Establishment be right, Religious Liberty is not : and 
if Religious Libert}- be right, an Establishment is not. Dif- 
ferently constituted religious establishments may, no doubt, 
impose greater or less restraint upon liberty ; but every idea 
of an establishment — of a church preferred by the state — im- 
poses some restraint. It is the same with Tests. . A test, of 
some kind, is necessary to a church thus preferred by the 
state ; for how else shall it be known who is a member of that 
church and who is not ? Religious Libert} 7 is incompatible 
with Religious Tests : for which reason again, all arguments 



320 



RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 



[ESSAY III. 



by which this liberty is shown to be right, are so many proofs 
that religious tests are wrong. These considerations the 
reader will be pleased to bear in mind, when he considers the 
question of Religious Establishments. 

Tests are snares for the conscience. If their terms are so 
loose that any man can take them with a safe conscience, 
they are not tests. If their terms are definite, they make 
many hypocrites. Men are induced to assent, or subscribe, 
or perform (whatever the requisitions of the test may be) 
against their consciences, in order to obtain the advantages 
which are contingent upon it. An attempt was once made 
in England to introduce an unexceptionable test, by which 
the party was to declare " that the books of the Old and New 
Testament contained, in his opinion a revelation from God." 
But whom did this exclude ? Perhaps Deists, ^Mahometans, 
Pagans, Jews. But, as a snare, the operation was serious ; 
for, simple as the test appears, it was liable to great uncer- 
tainty of meaning. Did it mean that all the books contained 
a revelation 1 Then some think that all the books are not 
authentic. Did it mean that there was a revelation in some 
of the books of the Bible ? Then Jews, Mahometans, Pa- 
gans, and some Deists might, for aught that I know, conscien- 
tiously take it. No unexceptionable test is possible. There 
are, to be sure, gradations of impropriety ; and in England 
we have not always resorted to the least objectionable. It 
was well observed by Charles James Fox, that " the idea of 
making a religious rite the qualification for holding a civil em- 
ployment is more than absurd, and deserves to be considered 
as a profanation of a sacred institution." 

A few, and only a few, sentences, will be allowed to the 
writer upon the great, the very great question, of extending 
religious liberty to the Catholics of these kingdoms. I call 
it a very great question, not because of the difficulty of deci- 
ding it, if sound principles are applied, but because of the 
magnitude of the interests that are involved, and of the con- 
sequences which may follow if those principles are not ap- 
plied. The reader will easily perceive, from the preceding 
contents of this chapter, the writer's conviction, that full Re- 
ligious Liberty ought to be extended to the Catholics, because 
it ought to be extended to all men. If a Catholic acts in op- 
position to the public welfare, diminish or take away his 
freedom ; if he only thinks amiss, let him enjoy his freedom 
undiminished. 

To this I know of but one objection that is worth noticing 



CHAP. IV.] 



RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 



321 



here — that they are harmless only because they have not the 
power of doing mischief, and they wait only for the power to 
begin to do it. But they say, " This is not the case — we have 
no such intentions." Now, in all reason, you must believe 
them, or show that they are unworthy of belief. If you be- 
lieve them, Religious Liberty follows of course. Can you 
then show that they are unworthy of belief ? Where is vour 
evidence ? 

You say, their, allegiance is divided between the king and 
a foreign power. They reply, " It is not J.-" "We hold our- 
selves bound in conscience, to obey the civil government in 
all things of a temporal and civil nature, notwithstanding any 
dispensation to the contrary, from the Pope or Church of 
Rome." 

You say their declarations and oaths do not bind them, be- 
cause they hold that they can be dispensed from the obligation 
of all oaths by .the Pope. — They reply, " We do not:" " We 
hold that the obligation of an oath is most sacred ; that no 
power whatsoever can dispense with any oath, by which a 
Catholic has confirmed his duty of allegiance to his sovereign, 
or any obligation of duty to a third person." 

You say, they hold that faith is not to be kept with heretics. 
— They reply, " We do not." " British Catholics," say they, 
"have solemnly sworn that they reject and detest that unchris- 
tian and impious principle, that faith is not to be kept with 
heretics or infidels." These declarations are taken from a 
" Declaration of the Catholic Bishops, the Yicars Apostolic, 
their coadjutors in Great Britain," 1825. They are signed 
by the Catholic Bishops of Great Britain, and are approved 
in an " address" signed by eight Catholic Peers and a large 
number of other persons of rank and character. 

Now I ask of those who contend for the Catholic disabil- 
ities, What proof do you bring that these men are trying to 
deceive you ? I can anticipate no answer, because I have 
heard none. Will you, then, content yourselves by saying, 
We will not believe them ? This would be at least the can- 
did course, and the world might then perceive that our conduct 
was regulated not by reason, but by prejudice or the con- 
sciousness of power. " It is unwarrantable to infer, a priori, 
and contrary to the professions and declarations of the per- 
sons holding such opinions, that their opinions would induce 
acts injurious to the common weal."* 

But if nothing can be said to show that the Catholic de- 
clarations do not bind them, something can be said to show 

* C. J. Fox: Gifford's Life of Pitt, vol. 2. 



322 



CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 



[ESSAY III. 



that they do. If declarations be indeed so little binding upon 
their consciences, how comes it to pass that they do not make 
those declarations which would remove their disabilities, get 
a dispensation from the Pope, and so enjoy both the privileges 
and an easy conscience ? Why, if their oaths and declara- 
tions did not bind them, they would get rid of their disabil- 
ities to-morrow ! Nothing is wanting but a few hypocritical 
declarations, and Catholic Emancipation is effected. Why 
do they not make these declarations 1 Because their words 
bind them. And yet, (so gross is the absurdity,) although it 
is their conscientiousness which keeps them out of office, we 
say they are to be kept out because they are not conscien- 
tious ! 

I forbear further inquiry : but I could not, with satisfaction, 
avoid applying what I conceive to be the sound principles of 
Political Rectitude to this great question ; and let no man 
allow his prejudices or his fears to prevent him from applying 
them to this, as to every other political subject. Justice and 
Truth are not to be sacrificed to our weaknesses and appre- 
hensions ; and I believe, that if the people and legislature of 
this country will adhere to justice and truth with regard to 
our Catholic brethren, they will find, erelong, that they have 
only been delaying the welfare of the Empire. 



CHAPTER V. 

CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 

Expediency of Obedience — Obligations to Obedience — Extent of the 
Duty — Resistance to the Civil Power — Obedience may be withdrawn 
— King James — America — Non-compliance — Interference of the Ma- 
gistrate — Oaths of Allegiance. 

Submission to Government is involved in the very idea of 
the institution. None can govern, if none submit : and hence 
is derived the duty of submission, so far as it is independent 
of Christianity. Government being necessary to the good of 
society, submission is necessary also, and therefore it is right 

This duty is enforced with great distinctness by Christian- 
ity — " Be subject to principalities and powers." — " Obey ma- 
gistrates." — " Submit to every ordinance of man." — The great 



CHAP. V.] 



CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 



323 



question, therefore, is, whether the duty be absolute and un- 
conditional ; and if not, what are its limits, and how are they 
to be ascertained ? 

The law of nature proposes few motives to obedience ex- 
cept those which are dictated by expediency. The object 
of instituting government being the good of the governed, 
any means of attaining that object is, in the view of natural 
reason, right. So that, if in any case a government does not 
effect its proper objects, it may not only be exchanged, but 
exchanged by any means which will tend on the whole to the 
public good. Resistance — arms — civil war — every act is, in 
the view of natural reason, lawful if it is useful. But although 
good government is the right of the people, it is, nevertheless, 
not sufficient to release a subject from the obligation of obe- 
dience, that a government adopts some measures which he 
thinks are not conducive to the general good. A wise pagan 
would not limit his obedience to those measures in which a 
government acted expediently ; because it is often better for 
the community that some acts of misgovernment should be 
borne, than that the general system of obedience should be 
violated. It is, as a general rule, more necessary to the wel- 
fare of a people that governments should be regularly obeyed, 
than that each of their measures should be good and right. 
In practice, therefore, even considerations of Utility are suf- 
ficient, generally, to oblige us to submit to the Civil power. 

When we turn from the law of nature to Christianity, we 
find, as we are wont, that the moral cord is tightened, and 
that not every means of opposing governments for the public 
good is permitted to us. The consideration of what modes 
of opposition Christianity allows, and what it forbids, is of 
great interest and importance. 

" Let eveiy soul be subject unto the higher powers. For 
there is no power but • of God : the powers that be are or- 
dained of God. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, 
resisteth the ordinance of God. For rulers are not a terror 
to good works, but to the evil. He is the minister of God 
to thee for good— a revenger, to execute wrath upon him that 
doeth evil. W'herefore, ye must needs be subject, not only 
for wrath, but also for conscience sake."* — Upon this often 
cited and often canvassed passage, three things are to be ob- 
served : — 

1. That it asserts the general duty of Civil obedience, be- 
cause government is an institution sanctioned by the Deity. 
* Rom. xiii. 1 to 5. 



324 



CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 



[ESSAY III. 



2. That it asserts this duty under the supposition that the 
governor is a minister of God for good. 

3. That it gives but little other imformation respecting the 
extent of the duty of obedience. 

I. The obligation to obedience is not founded, therefore, 
simply upon expediency, but upon the more satisfactory and 
certain ground, the expressed will of God. And here the su- 
periority of this motive over that of fear of the magistrate's 
power, is manifest". We are to be subject, not only for wrath, 
but for conscience' sake — not only out of fear of man, but out 
of fidelity to God. This motive, where it operates, is likely, 
as was observed, in the first Essay, to produce much more 
consistent and conscientious obedience than that of expedi- 
ency or fear. 

II. The duty is inculcated under the supposition that the 
governor is a minister for good. It is upon this supposition 
that the apostle proceeds : "for rulers are not a terror to good 
works, but to the evil ;" which is tantamount to saying, that 
if they be not a terror to evil works but to good, the duty of 
obedience is altered. " The power that is of God" says an 
intelligent and Christian writer, " leaves neither ruler nor sub- 
ject to the liberty of his own will, but limits both to the will 
of God ; so that the magistrate hath no power to command 
evil to be done because he is a magistrate, and the subject 
hath no liberty to do eAdl because a magistrate doth command 
it."* When, therefore, the Christian teacher says, V Let 
every soul be subject to the higher powers," he proposes not an 
absolute but a conditional rule — conditional upon the nature of 
the actions which the higher powers require. The expres- 
sion, " There is no power but of God," does not invalidate 
this conclusion, because the Apostles themselves did not 
yield unconditional obedience to the powers that were. Simi- 
lar observations apply to the parallel passage in 1st Peter : 
" Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's 
sake ; whether it be to the king as supreme, or unto governors 
as unto them that are sent by him, for the punishment of evil 
doers and for the praise of them that do welly The supposi- 
tion of the just exercise of power is still kept in view. 

III. The precepts give little Other information than this re- 
specting the extent of the duty of obedience. " Whosoever 
resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God," is, like 
the direction, to " be subject," a conditional proposition. What 
precise meaning was here attached to the word " resisteth," 

* Crisp: " To the Rulers and Inhabitants in Holland, &c. Abt. Ann. 
1670. 



CHAP. V.] 



CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 



325 



cannot perhaps be known ; but there is reason to think that 
the meaning was not designed to be precise — that the propo- 
sition was general. u Magistrates are not to be resisted," 
without denning, or attempting to define, the limits of civil 
obedience. 

Upon the whole, this often agitated portion of the Christian 
Scriptures does not appear to me to convey much information 
respecting the duties of civil obedience ; and although it ex- 
plicitly asserts the general duty of obedience to the magistrate, 
it does not inform us how far that duty extends, nor what are 
its limits. To say this, however, is a very different thing from 
saying, with Dr. Paley, that " As to the extent of our civil 
rights and obligations, Christianity hath left us where she found 
us : that she hath neither altered nor ascertained it ; that the 
Xew Testament contains not one passage, winch, fairly 
interpreted, affords either argument or objection applicable to 
any conclusions upon the subject that are deduced from the 
law and religion of nature." * Although the 13th chapter to 
the Romans may contain no such passage, yet I think it can 
be shown that the New Testament does. Indeed, it would be 
a strange thing if the Christian Scriptures, containing as they 
do manifold precepts for the regulation of human conduct, 
manifold precepts, of which the application is very wide, not 
to say uuiversal — it would, I say, be a strange thing if none 
of these precepts threw any light upon duties of such wide em- 
brace as those of citizens in relation to governors. 

The error (assuming that there is an error) in the statement 
of Dr. Paley, results, probably, from the supposition, that be- 
cause no passage specifically directed to civil obedience, con- 
tained the rules in question, therefore no rules were to be found 
in the volume. This is an error of every day. There are 
numberless questions of duty which Christianity decides, yet 
respecting which, specifically, not a word is to be foimd in the 
New Testament. These questions are decided by general 
principles, winch principles are distinctly laid down. These 
three words, " Love your enemies," are of greater practical 
application in the affairs of life, than twenty propositions 
which define exact duties in specific cases. It is for these 
exact definitions that men accustom themselves to seek ; and 
when they are not to be found, conclude that Christianity gives 
no directions upon the subject. 

Thus it has happened with the question of ^ivil Obedience. 
Now, in considering the general principles of Christianity, 1 
think very satisfactory knowledge may be deduced respecting 
* Bfor. and Pol Phil. b. 6, c. 4. 
28 



326 



CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 



[ESSAY III. 



resistance to the civil power. Those precepts to forbearance, 
to gentleness, to love, to mildness, which are iterated as the 
essence of the Christian morality, apply, surely, to the ques- 
tion of resistance. Surely there may be some degrees and 
kinds of resistance, which, being incompatible with the ob- 
servance of these principles, Christianity distinctly forbids. — 

If indeed the reader has given assent to our reasonings re- 
ft s 

specting self-defence, (especially if he shall give his assent 
to the reasonings on War,) he will readily admit that Christi- 
anity forbids an armed resistance to the civil power. Let me 
be distinctly understood. It forbids this armed resistance, 
not in as much as it is directed to the civil power, but in as 
much as such violence to any power is incompatible with the 
purity of the Christian character. 

Concluding, then, that specific rules respecting the extent 
of Civil Obedience are not to be found in Scripture, we are 
brought to the position, that we must ascertain this extent by 
the general duties which Christianity imposes upon mankind, 
and by the general principles of political Truth. In attempt- 
ing, upon these grounds, to illustrate our civil duties, I am so- 
licitous to remark that the Individual Christian who, regard- 
ing himself as a journeyer to a better country, thinks it best 
for him not to intermeddle in political affairs, may rightly 
pursue a path of simpler submission and acquiescence than 
that which I believe Christianity allows. Whatever may be 
the peculiar business of individuals, the business of man is to 
act as the Christian citizen — not merely to prepare himself 
for another world, but to do such good as he may, political as 
well as social, in the present, And yet so fundamentally, so 
utterly incongruous with Christian rectitude, is the state of 
many branches of political affairs in the present day, that I 
know not Avhether he who is solicitous to adhere to this rec- 
titude is not both wise and right in standing aloof. This con- 
sideration applies, especially, to circumstances in which the 
limits of Civil Obedience are brought into practical illustra- 
tions. The tumult and violence which ordinarily attend any 
approach to political revolutions are such, that the best and 
proper office of a good man may be rather that of a modera- 
tor of both parties than of a partisan with either. — Neverthe- 
less, it is fit that the Obligations of Civil Obedience should 
be distinctly understood. 

Referring, thqp, to political truth, it is to be remembered 
that governors are established, not for their own advantage, 
but for the people's. If they so far disregard this object of 
their establishment, as greatly to sacrifice the public welfare, 



CHAP. V.] 



CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 



327 



the people (and consequently individuals) may rightly consider 
whether a change of governors is not dictated by utility ; and 
if it is, they may rightly endeavour to effect such a change 
by recommending it to the public, and by transferring their 
obedience to those who, there is reason to believe, will better 
execute the offices for which government is instituted. I per- 
ceive nothing unchristian in this. A man who lived in 1688, 
and was convinced that it was for the general good that Wil- 
liam should be placed on the throne instead of James, was at 
liberty to promote, by all Christian means, the accession of 
William, and consequently to withdraw his own, and to re- 
commend others to withdraw their obedience, from James. 
The support of the Bill of Exclusion in Charles the Second's 
reign, was nearly allied to a withdrawing of civil obedience. 
The Christian of that day who was persuaded that the bill 
would tend to the public welfare, was right in supporting it, 
and he would have been equally right in continuing his sup- 
port if Charles had suddenly died, and his brother had sud- 
denly stepped into the throne. If I had lived in America 
fifty years ago, and had thought the disobedience of the colo- 
nies wrong, and that the whole empire would be injured 
by their separation from England, I should have thought my- 
self at liberty to urge these considerations upon other men, 
and otherwise to exert myself (always within the limits of 
Christian conduct) to support the British cause. I might, in- 
deed, have thought that there was so much violence and 
wickedness on both sides, that the Christian could take part 
with neither : but this is an accidental connexion, and in no 
degree affects the principle itself. But when the colonies 
were actually separated* from Britain, and it was manifestly 
the general will to be independent, I should have readily 
transferred my obedience to the United States, convinced 
that the new government was preferred by the people ; that, 
therefore, it was the rightful government ; and, being such, 
that it was my Christian duty to obey it. 

Now the lawful means of discouraging or promoting an al- 
teration of a government, must be determined by the general 
duties of Christian morality. There is, as we have seen, 
nothing in political affairs which conveys a privilege to throw 
off the Christian character ; and whatever species of opposi- 
tion or support involves a sacrifice or suspension of this 
character, is, for that reason, wrong. Clamorous and vehe- 
ment debatings and harangues — vituperation and calumny — 
acts of bloodshed and violence, or instigations to such acts, 
are, I think, measures in which the first teachers of Christianity 



328 



CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 



[essay nr. 



would not have participated ; measures which would have 
violated their own precepts ; and measures, therefore, which 
a Christian is not at liberty to pursue. Objections to these 
sentiments will no doubt be at hand : we shall be told that 
such opposition would be ineffectual against the encroach- 
ments of power and the armies of tyranny — that it would be 
to no purpose to reason with a general who had orders to en- 
force obedience ; and that the nature of the power to be over- 
come, dictated the necessity of corresponding power to over- 
come it. To all which it is, in the first place, a sufficient 
answer, that the question is not what evils may ensue from an 
adherence to Christianity, but what Christianity requires. 
We renew the oft-repeated truth, that Christian rectitude is 
paramount. When the first Christians refused obedience to 
some of the existing authorities — they did not resist. They 
exemplified their own precepts — to prefer the will of God be- 
fore all ; and if this preference subjected them to evils — to 
bear them without violating other portions of His Will in order 
to ward them off. But if resistance to the civil power was thus 
unlawful when the magistrate commanded actions that were 
morally wrong, much more clearly is it unlawful, when the 
wrongness consists only in political grievances. The incon- 
veniences of bad governments cannot constitute a superior 
reason for violence, to that which is constituted by the impo- 
sition of laws that are contrary to the laws of God. And if 
any one should insist upon the magnitude of political griev- 
ances, the answer is at hand — these evils cannot cost more 
to the community as a state, than the other class of evils costs 
to the individual as a man. 

If fidelity is required in private li?e, through whatever con- 
sequences, it is required also in public. The national suffer- 
ing can never be so great as the individual may be. The in- 
dividual may lose his life for his fidelity, but there is no such 
thing as a national martyrdom. Besides it is by no means 
certain that Christian opposition to mis-government would be 
so ineffectual as is supposed. Nothing is so invincible as de- 
terminate non-compliance. He that resists by force, may be 
overcome by greater force ; but nothing can overcome a calm 
and fixed determination not to obey. Violence might, no 
doubt, slaughter those who practised it, but it were an un- 
usual ferocity to destroy such persons in cool malignity. In 
such enquiries we forget how much difficulty we entail upon 
ourselves. A regiment which, after endeavouring to the ut- 
termost to destroy its enemies, refuses to yield, is in circum- 
stances totally dissimilar to that which our reasonings sup- 



CHAP. V.] 



CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 



329 



pose. Such a regiment might be cut to pieces ; but it would 
be, I believe, a " new thing under the sun," to go on slaughter- 
ing a people, of whom it was known not only that they had 
committed no violence, but that they would commit none. 

Refer again to America : The Americans thought that it 
was best for the general welfare that they should be inde- 
pendent, but England persisted in imposing the tax. Imagine, 
then, America to have acted upon Christian principles, and to 
have refused to pay it, but without those acts of exasperation 
and violence which they committed. England might have 
sent a fleet and an army. To what purpose ? Still no one 
paid the tax. The soldiery perhaps sometimes committed 
outrages, and they seized goods instead of the impost : still 
the tax could not be collected, except by a system of univer- 
sal distraint. — Does any man who employs his reason, believe 
that England would have overcome such a people ? does he 
believe that any government, or any army would have gone 
on destroying them ? especially does he believe this, if the 
Americans continually reasoned coolly and honourably with 
the other party, and manifested, by the unequivocal language 
of conduct, that they were actuated by reason and by Chris- 
tian rectitude ? No nation exists which would go on slaugh- 
tering such a people. It is not in human nature to do such 
things ; and I am persuaded not only that American independ- 
ence would have been secured, but that very far fewer of the 
Americans would have been destroyed : that very much less 
of devastation and misery would have been occasioned if they 
had acted upon these principles instead of upon the vulgar 
system of exasperation and violence. In a word, they would 
have attained the same advantage with more virtue, and at less 
cost. — With respect to those voluble reasoners who tell us 
of meanness of spirit, of pusillanimous submission, of base 
crouching before tyranny, and the like, it may be observed 
that they do not know what mental greatness is. Courage is 
not indicated most unequivocally by wearing swords or by 
wielding them. Many who have courage enough to take up 
arms against a bad government, have not courage enough to 
resist it by the unbending firmness of the mind — to maintain 
a tranquil fidelity to virtue in opposition to power ; or to en- 
dure with serenity the consequences which may follow. 

The Reformation prospered more by the resolute non-com- 
pliance of its supporters, than if all of them had provided 
themselves with swords and pistols. The most severely per- 
secuted body of Christians which this country has in later 
ages seen, was a body who never raised the arm of resistance. 

28* 



330 



CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 



[ESSAY III. 



They wore out that iron rod of oppression which the attri- 
tion of violence might have whetted into a weapon that 
would have cut them off from the earth, and they now reap 
the fair fruit of their principles in the enjoyment of privileges 
from which others are still debarred. 

There is one class of cases in which obedience is to be 
refused to the civil power without any view to an alteration 
of existing institutions — that is, when the magistrate com- 
mands that which it would be immoral to obey. What is 
wrong for the Christian is wrong for the subject. " All hu- 
man authority ceases at the point where obedience becomes 
criminal." Of this point of criminality every man must 
judge ultimately for himself ; for the opinion of another ought 
not to make him obey when he thinks it is criminal, nor to 
refuse obedience when he thinks it is lawful. Some even 
appear to think that the nature of actions is altered by the 
command of the state ; that what would be unlawful without 
its command is lawful with it. This notion is founded upon 
indistinct views of the extent of civil authority ; for this au- 
thority can never be so great as that of the Deity, and it is 
the Deity who requires us not to do evil. The Protestant 
would not think himself obliged to obey if the state should 
require him to acknowledge the authority of the Pope ; and 
why 1 Because he thinks it would be inconsistent with the 
Divine Will ; and this precisely is the reason why he should 
refuse obedience in other cases. He cannot rationally make 
distinctions, and say, " I ought to refuse obedience in ac- 
knowledging the Pope, but I ought to obey in becoming the 
agent of injustice or oppression." If I had been a French- 
man, and had been ordered, probably at the instigation of 
some courtezan, to immure a man, whom I knew to be inno- 
cent, in the Bastile, I should have refused ; for it never can 
be right to be the active agent of such iniquity. 

Under an enlightened and lenient government like our own, 
the cases are not numerous in which the Christian is ex- 
empted from the obligation to obedience. When, a century 
or two ago, persecuting acts were passed against some Chris- 
tian communities, the members of these communities were not 
merely at liberty, they were required to disobey them. One 
act imposed a fine of twenty pounds a-month for absenting 
one's self from a prescribed form of worship. He who 
thought that form less acceptable to the Supreme Being than 
another, ought to absent himself notwithstanding the law. So 
when in the present day, a Christian thinks the profession of 
arms, or the payment of preachers whom he disapproves, is 



CHAP. V.] CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 331 

wrong, he ought, notwithstanding any laws, to decline to pay 
the money or to bear the arms. 

Illegal commands do not appear to carry any obligation to 
obedience. Thus, when the Apostles had been "beaten 
openly and uncondemned, being Romans," they did not regard 
the directions of the magistracy to leave the prison, but as- 
serted their right to legal justice, by making the magistrates 
"come themselves and fetch them out." When Charles I. 
made his demands of supplies upon his own illegal authority, 
I should have thought myself at liberty to refuse to pay them. 
This were not a disobedience to government. Government 
was broken. One of its constituent parts refused to impose 
the tax, and one imposed it. I might, indeed, have held my- 
self in doubt whether Charles constituted the government or 
not. If the people had thought it best . to choose him alone 
for their ruler, he constituted the government, and his demand 
would have been legal ; for a law is but the voice of that 
governing power whom the people prefer. As it was, the 
people did not choose such a government : the demand was 
illegal, and might therefore be refused. 

Promises or Oaths of Allegiance to Governors do not ap- 
pear easily reconcilable with political reason. Promises are 
made for the advantage or security of the imposer ; and to 
make them to governors seems an inversion of the order which 
just principles would prescribe. The security should be 
given by the employ ed party, not by the employer. A com- 
munity should not be bound to obey any given officer whom 
they employ ; becfuse they may find occasion to exchange 
him for another. Men do not swear fidelity to their represent- 
atives in the senate. Promising fidelity to the state may ap- 
pear exempt from these objections, but the promise is likely 
to be of little avail ; for what is the state ? or how is its will 
to be discovered but by the voice of the governing power ? 
To promise fidelity to the state is not very different from 
promising it to a governor. 

If it be said that promises of allegiance may be useful in 
periods of confusion, or when the public mind is divided re- 
specting the choice of governors, such a period is peculiarly 
unfit for promising allegiance to one. The greater the insta- 
bility of an existing government, the greater the unreason- 
ableness of exacting an oath. If an oath should maintain a 
tottering government against the public mind, it does mischief, 
and if a government is secure, an oath is not needed. 

The sequestered ministers in the time of Charles II., were 



f 



332 



CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 



[essay HI- 



required to take an oath, " declaring that they would not at 
any time endeavour an alteration in the government of the 
church or state."* One reason of their ejection was. that 
they would not declare their assent to every thing in the Book 
of Common Prayer. Why should these persons be required 
to promise not to endeavour an alteration in Church Govern- 
ment, when, probably, some of them thought the endeavour 
formed a part of their Christian duty ? Upon similar grounds 
it may be doubted whether the Roman Catholics of our day 
ought to declare as they do, that they mil not endeavour any 
alteration in the religious establishments of the country. To 
promise this without limitation is surely promising more than 
a person who disapproves that establishment ought to promise. 
The very essence of peculiar religious systems tends to the 
alteration of all others. He who preaches the Romish creed 
and practice, does practically oppose the Church of England, 
and practically endeavour an alteration in it. And if a man 
thinks his own system the best, he ought, by Christian means 
to endeavour to extend it. 

And even if these declarations were less objectionable in 
principle, their practical operation is bad. Some invasion or 
revolution places a new prince upon the throne — that very 
prince, perhaps, whom the people's oath of allegiance was 
expressly designed to exclude. What are such a people to 
do ? Are they to refuse obedience to the ruler whom, per- 
haps, there are the best reasons for obeying ? Or are they to 
keep their oaths sacred, and thus injure the general weal ? 
Such alternatives ought not to be imposed. But the truth is, 
that allegiance is commonly adjusted to % standard very dis- 
tinct from the meaning of oaths. How many revolutions 
have oaths of allegiance prevented ? In general a people 
will obey the power whom they prefer, whatever oaths may 
have bound them to another. In France, all men were required 
to swear " that they would be faithful to the Nation, the Law, 
and the KmgP A year after these same Frenchmen swore 
an everlasting abjuration of monarchy ! And now they are 
living quietly under a monarchy again ! After the accession 
of William III., when the clergy were required to take oaths 
contrary to those which they had before taken to James, very 
few in comparison refused. The rest " took them with such 
reservations and distinctions, as redounded very* little to the 
honour of their integrity."! 

Thus it is that these oaths which are objectionable in prin- 

* Southey's Book of the Church. + Smollet's History of 

England. 



CHAP. VI.] 



FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 



333 



ciple, are so nugatory in practice. The mischief is radical. 
Men ought not to be required to engage to maintain, at a fu- 
ture period, a set of opinions which,, at a future period they 
may probably think erroneous : nor to maintain allegiance to 
any set of men whom, hereafter, they may perhaps find it ex- 
pedient to replace by others. 



CHAPTER VI. 

FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 

Some general principles — Monarchy — Balance of interests and passions—- 
Changes in a constitution — Popular government — The world in a state 
of improvement — Character of legislators. 

There is one great cause which prevents the political 
moralist from describing, absolutely, what form of government 
is preferable to all others — which is, that the superiority of a 
form depends, like the proper degree of civil liberty, upon the 
existing condition of a community. Other doctrine has in- 
deed been held : " Wherever men are competent to look the 
first duties of humanity in the face, and to provide for their 
defence against the invasion of hunger and the inclemencies 
of the sky, there they will, out of all doubt, be found equally 
capable of every other exertion that may be necessary to 
their security and welfare. Present to them a constitution 
which shall put them into a simple and intelligible method of 
directing their own affairs, adjudging their contests among 
themselves, and cherishing in their bosoms a manly sense of 
dignity, equality, and independence, and you need not doubt 
that prosperity and virtue will be the result."* 

There is need to doubt and to disbelieve it — unless it can 
be shown from experience that uncultivated and vicious men 
require nothing more to make them wise and good than to be 
told the way. " Present to them a constitution." Who shall 
present it ? Some foreign intelligence, manifestly ; and if 
this foreign intelligence is necessary to devise a constitution, 
it will be necessary to keep it in operation and in order. But 
when this is granted, it is in effect granted that an unculti- 

* Godwin's Enq. Pol. Just. vol. 1. p. 69. 



334 



FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 



[ESSAY III. 



vated and vicious people are not " capable of every exertion 
that may be necessary to their security and welfare." 

But if certain forms cannot be specified which shall be 
best for the adoption of every state, there are general princi- 
ples to direct us. 

It is manifest that the form of government, like the admin- 
istration of power, should be conformable to the public wish. 
In a certain sense, and in a sense of no trifling import, that 
form is best for a people which the people themselves prefer : 
and this rule applies, even although the form may not be in- 
trinsically the best ; for public welfare and satisfaction are 
the objects of government, and this satisfaction may some- 
times be insured by a form which the public prefer, more ef- 
fectually than by a form, essentially better, which they dis- 
like. Besides, a nation is likely to prefer that form which 
accords best with what is called the national genius ; and 
thus there may be a real adaptation of a form to a people 
which is yet not abstractedly the best, nor the best for their 
neighbours. But when it is said that that form of govern- 
ment ought to be adopted for a people, which they themselves 
prefer, it is not to be forgotten that their preference is often 
founded upon their weaknesses or their ignorance. Men ad- 
here to an established form because they think little of a bet- 
ter. Long prescription gives to even bad systems an obscure 
sanctity amongst unthinking men. No reasonable man can 
suppose that the government of Louis the Fourteenth was 
good for the French people, or that that form could be good 
which enabled him to trifle with or to injure the public wel- 
fare. And yet, when his ambition and tyranny had reduced 
the French to poverty and to wretchedness, they still clung 
to their oppressor, and made wonderful sacrifices to support 
his power. — Now, though it might have been both improper and 
unjust to give a new constitution to the French when they 
preferred the old, yet such examples indicate the sense in 
which only it is true that the form which a people prefer is 
the best for them ; — and they indicate, too, most powerfully, 
the duty of every citizen and of every legislator to diffuse 
just notions of political truth. The nature of a government 
contributes powerfully, no doubt, to the formation of this na- 
tional genius ; and thus an imperfect form sometimes contrib- 
utes to its own duration. 

In the present condition of mankind, it is probable that 
some species of monarchy is best for the greater part of the 
world. Republicanism opens more wide the gates of ambi- 
tion. He who knows that the utmost extent of attainable 



CHAP. VI.] 



FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 



335 



power is, to be the servant of a prince, is not likely to be 
fired by those boundless schemes of ambition which may ani- 
mate the republican leader. The virtue of the generality of 
mankind is not sufficiently powerful to prompt them to politi- 
cal moderation without the application of an external curb : 
and thus it happens that the order and stability of a govern- 
ment is more efficiently secured by the indisputable supremacy 
of one man. Now, order and stability are amongst the first 
requisites of a good constitution, for the object of political in- 
stitutions cannot be secured without them. 

I accept the word Monarchy in an enlarged sense. It is 
not necessary to the security of these advantages even in 
the existing state of human virtue, that the monarch should 
possess what we call kingly power. By monarchy I mean a 
form of government in which one man is invested with power 
greatly surpassing that of every other. The peculiar means 
by which this power is possessed, do not enter necessarily 
into the account. The individual may have the power of a 
Sultan or a Czar, or a King or a President ; that is, he may 
possess various degrees of power, and yet the essential prin- 
ciple of monarchy and its practical tendencies may be the 
same in all — the same to repress violence by extent of power — 
the same to discountenance ambition by the hopelessness of 
gratifying unlimited desire. 

It is usual to insist, as one of the advantages of monarchy, 
upon its secrecy and despatch ; which secrecy and despatch, 
it is to be observed, would be of comparatively little impor- 
tance in a more advanced state of human virtue. Where 
diplomatic chicanery and hostile exertions are employed, de- 
spatch and secrecy are doubtless very subservient to success ; 
but take away the hostility and chicanery — take away, that 
is, such wickedness from amongst men, and secrecy and de- 
spatch would be of little interest or importance. We love 
darkness rather than light, because our deeds are evil. Thus 
it is that unnumbered usages and institutions find advocacy, 
rather in the immoral condition of mankind, than in direct 
evidences of their excellence. 

" An hereditary monarchy is universally to be preferred to 
an elective monarchy. The confession of every writer on the 
subject of civil government, the experience of ages, the exam- 
ple of Poland and of the Papal dominions, seem to place this 
amongst the few indubitable maxims which the science of 
politics admits of."* But, without attempting to decide upon 
the preferableness of hereditary or elective monarchy, it may 
* Paley : Mor. and Pol. Phil., p. 3, b. 6, c. 6. 



336 



forms of Government. 



[essay nr. 



be questioned whether this formidable array of opinion has 
not been founded upon the mischiefs which actually have re- 
sulted from electing princes, rather than from those which are 
inseparable from the election. The election of the kings of 
Poland convulsed that unhappy country, and sometimes em- 
broiled Europe. The election of Popes has produced similar 
effects ; but this is no evidence that popes and kings cannot be 
elected by pacific means ; cardinals and lords may embroil a 
nation, when other electors would not. 

I call the President of the United States a Monarch. He 
is not called, indeed, an emperor, or a king, or a duke, but he 
exercises much of regal power. Yet he is elected : and 
where is the mischief 1 The United States are not convulsed : 
civil war is not waged ; foreign princes do not support with 
armies the pretensions of one candidate or another ; — and yet 
he is elected. Who then will say that other monarchs might 
not be elected too 1 It will not be easy to show that the being 
invested with greater power than the President of America, 
necessarily precludes the peaceable election of a prince. The 
power of the president differs, I believe, less from that of the 
king of England, than the power of the king differs from that 
of the Russian emperor. No man can define the maximum 
of power, which might be conferred without public mischief 
by the election of the public. Yet I am attempting to eluci- 
date a political truth, and not recommending a practice. It 
is, indeed, possible, that when the genius of a people, and the 
whole mass of their political institutions are favourable to an 
election of the supreme magistrate, election would be prefer- 
able to hereditary succession. But election is not without its 
disadvantages, especially if the appointment be for a short 
time. When there are several candidates, and when the in- 
clinations of the community are consequently divided, he who 
actually assumes the reins is the sovereign of the choice of 
only a portion of the people. The rest prefer another : which 
circumstance is not only likely to animate the hostilities of 
faction, but to make the elected party regard one portion of 
the people as his enemies and the other as his friends. But 
he should be the parent of all the people. 

Fox observed with respect to the British Constitution, that 
" the safety of the whole depends on the jealousy which each 
retains against the others, not on the patriotism of any one 
branch of the legislature."* This is doubtless true ; yet surely 
it is a melancholy truth. It is a melancholy consideration, 
that, in constructing a constitution, it is found necessary not 
* Speech on the Regency Question. 



CHAP. VI.] 



FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 



337 



to encourage virtue but to repress vice, and to contrive mutual 
curbs upon ambition and licentiousness. It is a tacit, but a 
most emphatieal acknowledgment, how much private inclina- 
tion triumphs over public virtue, and how little legislators are 
disposed to keep in the right political path, unless they are 
restrained from deviation by walls and spikes. 

Yet it is upon this lamentable acknowledgment that the 
great institutions of free states are frequently founded. A 
balance of interests and passions is contrived, something like 
the balance of power, of which we hear so much amongst 
the nations of Europe — a balance of which the necessity (if 
it be necessary) consists in the wickedness, the ambition, and 
the violence of mankind. If nations did not viciously desire 
to encroach upon one another, this balance of power would 
be forgotten ; and in a purer state of human virtue, the jeal- 
ousies of the different branches of a legislature will not need 
to be balanced against each other. Until the period of this 
advanced state of human excellence shall arrive, I know not 
how this balance can be dispensed with. It may still be 
needful to oppose power to power, to restrain one class of 
interests by the counteraction of others, and to acquire gen- 
eral quiet to the whole by annexing inevitable evils to the en- 
croachments of the separate parts. Thus, again, it happens 
that constitutions which are not abstractedly the best, or even 
good, may be the best for a nation now. 

Whatever be the form of a government, one quality appears 
to be essential to practical excellence — that it should be sus- 
ceptible of peaceable change. The science of government, 
like other sciences, acquires a constant accession of light. 
The intellectual condition of the world is advancing with on- 
ward strides. And both* these considerations intimate that 
Fomis of Government should be capable of admitting, without 
disturbance, those improvements which experience may dic- 
tate, or the advancing condition of a community may require. 
To reject improvement, is absurd ; to incapacitate ourselves 
for adopting it, is absurd also. It surely is no unreasonable 
sacrifice of vanity to admit, that those who succeed us may 
be better judges of what is good for themselves, than we can 
be for them. 

Upon these grounds no constitution should be regarded as 
absolutely and sacredly fixed, so that none ought and none 
have a right to alter it. The question of right is easily set- 
tled. It is inherent in the community, or in the legislature as 
their agents. It would be strange, indeed, if our predecessors, 
five or six centuries ago, had a right to make a constitution for 

29 



338 



FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 



[ESSAY III. 



us, which we have no right to alter for ourselves. Such 
checks ought, no doubt, to be opposed to alterations, that they 
may not be lightly and crudely made. The exercise of polit- 
ical wisdom is to discover that point in which sufficient obsta- 
cles are opposed to hasty innovation, and in which sufficient 
facility is afforded for real improvement by virtuous means. 
The common disquisitions about the value of stability in gov- 
ernments, like those about the sacredness of forms, are fre- 
quently founded in inaccurate views. What confusion, it is 
exclaimed, and what anarchy and commotions would follow, 
if we were at liberty continually to alter political constitutions ! 
But it is forgotten that these calamities result from the circum- 
stance that constitutions are not made easily alterable. The 
interests which so many have in keeping up the present state 
of things, make them struggle against an alteration ; and it is 
this struggle which induces the calamities, rather than any 
thing necessarily incidental to the alteration itself. Take 
away these interests, take away the motives to these struggles, 
and improvements may be peacefully made. Yet it must be 
acknowledged that to take away these interests is no light 
task. We must once again refer to " the present condition 
of mankind," and confess that it may be doubted whether any 
community would possess a stable or an efficient government, 
if no interests bound its officers to exertion. To such a gov- 
ernment patronage is probably at present indispensable. They 
who possess patronage and they who are enriched or exalted 
by its exercise, array themselves against those propositions of 
change which would diminish their eminence or their wealth. 
And I perceive no means by which the existence of these 
interests, and their consequent operation can be avoided, ex- 
cept by that elevation of the moral character of our race 
which Avould bring with it adequate motives to serve the pub- 
lic without regard to honours or rewards. It is however in- 
disputably true, that these interests should be as much as is 
practicable diminished ; and in whatever degree this is effected, 
in the same degree there will be a willingness to admit those 
improvements in the form of governments which prudence 
and wisdom may prescribe. 

" Let no new practice in politics be introduced, and no old 
one anxiously superseded till called for by the public voice."* 
The same advice may be given respecting the alteration of 

* Godwin : Pol. Just., v. 2, p. 593. This doctrine is adverse to that 
which is quoted in the first page of this chapter, where to be able to pro- 
vide for mere physical wants, is stated to be a sufficient qualification for 
the reception of an entirely new system of politics. 



CHAP. VI.] 



FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 



339 



forms ; because alterations which are not so called for, may 
probably fail of a good effect from the want of a congenial 
temper in the people, and because, as the public wish is the 
natural measure of sound political institutions, even beneficial 
changes ought not to be forced upon them against their own 
consent. The public mind, however, should be enlightened 
by a government. The legislator who perceives that another 
form of government is better for his country, does not do all 
his duty, if he declares himself willing to concur in the alter- 
ation when the country desires it : he should create that desire 
by showing its reasonableness. Unhappily there is a vis 
inertia in governments of which the tendency is opposite to 
this. The interests which prompt men to maintain things as 
they are, and dread of innovation, and sluggishness, and indif- 
ference, occasion governments to be amongst the last portion 
of the community to diffuse knowledge respecting political 
truth. But, when the public mind has by any means become 
enlightened, so that the public voice demands an alteration of 
an existing form, it is one of the plainest as well as one of the 
greatest duties of a government to make the alteration : not 
reluctantly but joyfully, not urging the prescription of ages, 
and what is called " the wisdom of our ancestors," but philo- 
sophically yet soberly accommodating present institutions to 
the present state of mankind. 

If, then, it is asked by what general rule Forms of Govern- 
ment should be regulated, I would say — Accommodate the 
form to the opinion of the community ; whatever that commu- 
nity may prefer : and, Adopt institutions such as will facilitate 
the peaceable admission of alterations, as greater light and 
knowledge become diffused. I would not say to the Sultan, 
Adopt the constitution of England to-morrow : because the 
sudden transition would probably effect, for a long time, more 
evil than good. I would not say to the King of France, 
Descend from the throne and establish a democracy ; because 
I do not think, and experience does not teach us to think, that 
democracy, even if it were, theoretically best, is best for 
France at the present day. 

Turning, indeed, to the probable future condition of the 
world, there is reason to think that the popular branches of 
all governments will progressively increase in influence, and 
perhaps eventually predominate. This appears to be the na- 
tural consequence of the increasing power of public opinion. 
The public judgment is not only the proper, but almost the 
necessary eventual measure of political institutions ; and it 
appears evident that, as that judgment becomes enlightened, 



340 



FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. [ESSAY III. 



it will be exercised, and that, as it is exercised, it will prevail. 
The expression of public opinion upon political affairs, and 
consequently the influence of that opinion, partakes obviously 
of the principles of popular government. If public opinion 
governs, it must govern by some agency by which public 
opinion is expressed ; and this expression can in no way so 
naturally be effected, as by some modification of popular au- 
thority. These considerations, which appear obvious to rea- 
soning, are enforced by experience. There is a manifest 
tendency in the world to the increase of the power of the 
public voice ; and the effect is seen in the new constitutions 
which have been established in the new world and in the old. 
Few permanent revolutions are effected in which the commu- 
nity do not acquire additional influence in governing them- 
selves. 

It will not perhaps be disputed, that if the world were wise 
and good, the best form of government would be that of 
democracy in a very simple state. Nothing would be want- 
ing but to ascertain the general wish and to collect the general 
wisdom. If, therefore, the present propriety of other forms 
of government results from the present condition of mankind, 
there is reason to suppose that they may gradually lapse away, 
as that condition, moral and intellectual, is improved. Whether 
mankind are thus improving, readers may differently decide ; 
and their various decisions will lead to various conclusions 
respecting the future predominance of the public voice : the 
writer of these pages is one who thinks that the world is im- 
proving, that virtue as well as knowledge is extending its 
power ; and therefore that, as ages roll along, every form of 
government but that which consists in some organ of the gen- 
eral mind, will gradually pass away. It may be hoped, too, 
that this gradual lapse will be occasioned, without solicitude 
on the part of those who then possess privileges or power, to 
retain either to themselves. That same state of virtue and 
excellence which enabled the people almost immediately to 
govern themselves, would prevent others from wishing to re- 
tain the reins. Purer motives than the love of greatness, of 
power, or of wealth, would influence them in the choice of 
their political conduct. They might have no motive so power- 
ful as the promotion of the general weal. 

As no limit can be assigned to that degree of excellence 
which it may please the Universal Parent eventually to dif- 
fuse through the world, so none can be assigned to the sim- 
plicity and purity of the form in which government shall be 
carried on. In truth, the mind, as it passes onward and still 



CHAP. VI.] 



FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 



341 



onward in its anticipations of purity, stops not until it arrives 
at that period when all government shall cease ; when there 
shall be no wickedness to require the repressing arm of 
power ; when terror to the evil-doers and praise to them that 
do well, shall no longer be needed, because none will do evil 
though there be no ruler to punish, and all will do well from 
higher and better motives than the praise of man. 

In speaking of political constitutions, it is not sufficiently 
remembered in how great a degree good government depends 
upon the character and the virtue of those who shall conduct 
it. There is much of truth in the political maxim, that 
" whatever is best administered is best/' But how shall 
good administration be secured except by the good disposi- 
tions of the administrators ? The great present concern of 
mankind, in the selection of their legislators, respects their 
political opinions rather than their moral and Christian char- 
acter. This exclusive reference to political biasses is surely 
unwise, because it leaves the passions and interests to operate 
without that control which individual virtue only can impart. 
Thus we are obliged to contrive reins and curbs for the public 
servants, as the charioteer contrives them for an unruly horse ; 
too much forgetting that the best means of securing the safety 
of the vehicle of state, are found in the good dispositions of 
those who move it onward. Political tendencies are impor- 
tant ; but they are not the most important point. ; moral ten- 
dencies are the first and the greatest. The question in Eng- 
land should be, less, " ministerialist or oppositionist V' in 
America, less, " federalist or republican ?" than in both, " a 
good or a bad man V' Rectitude of intention is the primary 
requisite ; and whatever preference I might give to superior- 
ity of talents and to political principles, above all, and before 
all, I should prefer the enlightened Christian ; knowing that 
his character is the best pledge of political uprightness, and 
that political uprightness is the best security of good govern- 
ment. 



29* 



342 



POLITICAL INFLUENCE. 



[ESSAY III. 



CHAPTER VII. 

POLITICAL INFLUENCE. — PARTY. — MINISTERIAL UNION 

Influence of the crown — Effects of influence — Incongruity of public 
notions — Patronage — American States — Dependency on the mother 
country — Party — Ministerial Union — " A party man" — The council 
board and the senate — Resignation of offices. 

The system of governing by influence appears to be a 
substitute for the government of force — an intermediate step 
between awing by the sword and directing by reason and 
virtue. When the general character of political measures is 
such, that reason and virtue do not sufficiently support them 
to recommend them, on their own merits, to the public appro- 
bation — these measures must be rejected, or they must be 
supported by foreign means ; and when, by the political in- 
stitutions of a people, force is necessarily excluded, nothing 
remains but to have recourse to some species of Influence. 
There is another ground upon which Influence becomes, in a 
certain sense, necessary — which is, that there is so much 
imperfection of virtue in the majority of legislators — they 
are so much guided by interested or ambitious or party mo- 
tives, that for a measure to be recommended by its own 
excellence, is sometimes not sufficient to procure their con- 
currence ; and thus it happens that Influence is resorted to, 
not merely because public measures are deficient in purity, 
but because there is a deficiency of uprightness in public 
men. 

Whilst political affairs continue to be conducted on their 
present, or nearly on their present, principles, I believe influ- 
ence is necessary to the stability of almost all governments. 
How else shall they be supported f They are not sufficiently 
virtuous to bespeak the general and unbiassed support of the 
nations, and without support of some kind, they must fall. 
That which Hume says of England is perhaps true of all 
civilized states — " The influence which the crown acquires 
from the disposal of places, honours, and preferments, may 
become too forcible, but it cannot altogether be abolished 
without the total destruction of monarchy, and even of all 
regular authority."* A mournful truth it is ! because it neces- 
sarily implies one of two things — either that the acts " of au- 
thority" do not recommend themselves by their own excel- 

* History of England. 



CHAP. VII.] 



POLITICAL INFLUENCE. 



343 



lences, or that subjects are too little principled to be influenced 
by such excellences alone. 

Whilst the generality of subjects continue to be what they 
are, Influence is inseparable from the privilege of appointing 
to offices. With whomsoever that privilege is entrusted, he 
will possess influence, and consequently power. Multitudes 
are hoping for the gifts which he has to bestow ; and they 
accommodate their conduct to his wishes, in order to propiti- 
ate his favour, and to obtain the reward. When they have 
obtained it, they call themselves bound in gratitude to con- 
tinue their deference ; and thus the influence and the power 
is continually possessed. Now, there is no way of destroy- 
ing this influence but by making men good ; for until they 
are good, they will continue to sacrifice their judgments to 
their interests, and support men or measures, not because 
they are right, but because the support is attended with re- 
ward. It matters little in morals by whom the power of be- 
stowing offices is possessed, unless you can ensure the virtue 
of the bestower. Politicians may talk of taking the power 
from crowns and vesting it in senates : but it will be of little 
avail to change the hands who distribute, if you cannot change 
the hearts. If a man should ask whether the Influence of the 
crown in this country might not usefully be transferred to the 
House of Commons, I should answer, No. Not merely be- 
cause it would overthrow (for it certainly would overthrow) 
the monarchy, but because I know not that any security 
would be gained for a better employment of this influence 
than is possessed already. In all but arbitrary governments 
it appears indispensable that much of the privilege of appoint- 
ing to offices should rest with the executive power. It is the 
peculiar source of its authority. In our own government, the 
peers possess power independently of their political charac- 
ter, and the commons possess it as representatives of the 
public mind ; but where, without Influence, would be the 
power of the king 1 So it is in America. They have two 
representative bodies, and a third estate in the office of their 
president. But that president could not execute the functions 
of a third estate, nor the office of an executive governor, with- 
out having the means of influencing the people. I do not 
know whether it was with the determinate object of giving 
to the president a competent share of power that the Ameri- 
cans invested him with the privilege of appointing to offices ; 
but it is not to be questioned, that if they had not done it, the 
fabric of their government would speedily have fallen. 

The degree of this influence, which may be required to 



344 POLITICAL INFLUENCE. [ESSAY III. 

give stability to an executive body, (and therefore to a con- 
stitution,) will vary with the character of its own policy. 
The more widely that policy deviates from rectitude, the 
greater will be the demand for Influence to induce concur- 
rence in its measures. The degree of influence that is actu- 
ally exerted by a government, is therefore no despicable cri- 
terion of the excellence of its practice. In the United States 
the degree is less than in England ; and it may therefore be 
feared that we are inferior to them in the purity of the gen- 
eral administration of the affairs of state. 

But let it be constantly borne in mind, that when we thus 
speak of the "necessity" for influence to support govern- 
ments, we speak only of governments as they are, and of 
nations as they are. There is no necessity for influence to 
support good government over a good people. All influence 
but that which addresses itself to the judgment, is wrong — 
wrong in morals, and therefore indefensible upon whatever 
plea. Influence is in part necessary to a government in the 
same sense that oppression is necessary to a slave trader — 
not because the captain is a man, but because he has taken 
up the trade in slaves — not because the government is a gov- 
ernment, but because it conducts so many political affairs 
upon unchristian principles or in an unchristian manner. 
The captain says, I cannot secure my slaves without oppres- 
sion — Let them go free. The government says, I cannot" 
conduct my system without Influence — Make the system 
good. 

And here arises the observation, that if a government 
should faithfully act upon moral principles, that demand for 
influence which is occasioned by the ill principles of senators 
or the public, would be diminished or done away. The op- 
position which governments are wont to experience — inde- 
fensible as that opposition frequently is — is the result, prin- 
cipally, of the general character of political systems. Men, 
seeing that integrity and purity are sacrificed by a govern- 
ment to other considerations, adopt kindred means of oppo- 
sing it. If I reason with a man upon the impropriety of his 
conduct, he will probably listen ; if I use violence, he will 
probably use violence in return. There is no reason to doubt 
that, if political measures were more uniformly conformable 
with the sober judgments of a community, respect and affec- 
tion would soon become so general and powerful, that that 
clamorous opposition which it is now attempted to oppose by 
influence, would be silenced by the public voice. Besides 
the very fact that influence is exercised, animates opposition 



CHAP. VII.] 



POLITICAL INFLUENCE. 



345 



to measures of state. The possession of power — that is, in 
a great degree, of Influence — is a tempting bait ; and it can- 
not be doubted that some range themselves against an execu- 
tive body, not so much from objections to its measures as from 
desire of its power. Take away the influence, therefore, and 
you take away one operative cause of opposition — one great 
obstacle to the free progress of the vessel of state. 

" All influence but that which addresses itself to the judg- 
ment, is wrong." Of the moral offence which this influence 
implies, many are guilty who oppose governments, as well as 
those who support them, or as governments themselves. It 
is evidently not a whit more virtuous to exert influence in 
opposing governments than in supporting them : nor, indeed, 
is it so virtuous. To what is a man influenced ? Obviously, 
to do that which, without the influence, he would not do ; — 
that is to say, he is induced to violate his judgment at the 
request or at the will of other men. It can need no argument 
to show that this is vicious. In truth, it is vicious in a very 
high degree ; for to conform our conduct to our own sober 
judgment, is one of the first dictates of the Moral Law : and 
the viciousness is so much the greater, because the express 
purpose for which a man is appointed to legislate, is that the 
community may have the benefit of his uninfluenced judg- 
ment. Breach of trust is added to the sacrifice of individual 
integrity. A nation can- gain nothing by the knowledge or 
experience of a million of "influenced" legislators. It is 
curious, that the submission to influence which men often 
practise as legislators, they would abhor as judges. What 
should we say of a judge or a juryman who accepted a place 
or a promise as a bribe for an unjust sentence 1 We should 
prosecute the juryman and address the parliament for a re- 
moval of the judge. Is it then of so much less consequence 
in what manner affairs of state are conducted than the affairs 
of individuals, that that which would be disgraceful in one 
case, is reputable in another 1 No account can be given of 
this strange incongruity of public notions, than that custom 
has in one case blinded our eyes, and in the other has taught 
us to see. Let the legislator who would abhor to accept a 
purse to bribe him to write Ignoramus upon a true bill, apply 
the principle upon which his abhorrence is founded to his 
political conduct. When our moral principles are consistent 
these incongruities will cease. When uniform truth takes 
the place of vulgar practice and opinion, these incongruities 
will become wonderful for their absurdity ; and men will 
scarcely believe that their fathers, who could see so clearly. 



346 



POLITICAL INFLUENCE. 



[ESSAY III. 



saw so ill. The same sort of stigma which now attaches to 
Lord Bacon, will attach to multitudes who pass for honour- 
able persons in the present day. 

A man may lawfully, no doubt, take a more active part in 
political measures, in compliance with the wishes of another, 
than he might otherwise incline to do ; but to support the 
measures of an opposition or an administration, because they 
are their measures, can never be lawful. — Nor can it ever be 
lawful to magnify the advantages or to expatiate upon the 
mischiefs of a measure, beyond his secret estimate of its 
demerits or its merits. That legislator is viciously influ- 
enced, who says or who does any thing which he would 
think it not proper to say or do if he were an independent 
man. 

But it will be said, Since influence is inseparable from the 
possession of patronage, and since patronage must be vested 
somewhere, what is to be done ? or how are the evils of In- 
fluence to be done away ? — a question which, like many other 
questions in political morality, is attended with accidental 
rather than essential difficulties. Patronage, in a virtuous 
state of mankind, would be small. There would be none in 
the church and little in the state. Men would take the over- 
sight of the Christian flock, not for filthy lucre but of a ready 
mind. If the ready mind existed, the influence of patronage 
would be needless : and, as a needless thing, it would be 
done away. And as to the state, when we consider how 
much of patronage in all nations results from the vicious 
condition of mankind — especially for military and naval ap- 
pointments — it will appear that much of this class of patron- 
age is accidental also. Take away that wickedness and 
violence in which hostile measures originate, and fleets and 
armies would no longer be needed ; and with their dissolution 
there would be a prodigious diminution of Patronage and of 
Influence. So, if we continue the enquiry, how far any given 
source of influence arising from patronage is necessary to the 
institution of civil government, we shall find, at last, that the 
necessary portion is very small. We are little accustomed 
to consider how simple a thing civil government is — nor 
what an unnumbered multiplicity of offices and sources of 
patronage would be cut of, if it existed in its simple and 
rightful state. 

Supposing this state of rectitude to be attained, and the 
little patronage which remained to be employed rather as an 
encouragement and reward of public virtue than of subserv- 
iency to purposes of party, we should have no reason to com- 



CHAP. VII.] 



POLITICAL INFLUENCE. 



347 



plain of the existence of Influence or of its effects. Swift 
said of our own country, that " while the prerogative of giv- 
ing all employments continues in the crown, either immedi- 
ately or by subordination, it is in the power of the prince to 
make piety and virtue become the fashion of the age, if, at 
the same time, he would make them necessary qualifications 
for favour and preferment.''* But unhappily, in the existing 
character of political affairs in all nations, piety and virtue 
would be very poor recommendations to many of their con- 
cerns. "The just man," as Adam Smith says, " the man 
who, in all private transactions would be the most beloved 
and the most esteemed, in those public transactions is regarded 
as a fool and an idiot, who does not understand his business."! 
It would be as absurd to think of making " piety and virtue, 
qualifications" for these offices, as to make idiocy a qualifica- 
tion for understanding the Principia. — But the position of 
Swift, although it is not true whilst, politics remain to be what 
they are, contains truth if they were what they ought to be. 
We should have, I say, no reason to complain of the exist- 
ence of influence or of its effects, if it were reduced to its 
proper amount, and exerted in its proper direction. 

It has, I think, been justly observed that one of the princi- 
pal causes of the separation of America from Britain, con- 
sisted in the little influence which the crown possessed over 
the American States. They had popular assemblies, guided 
as such assemblies are wont to be, by impatience of control, 
as well as by zeal for independence ; and the government 
possessed no patronage that was sufficient to counteract the 
democratic principles. Occasion of opposition was minis- 
istered ; and the effect was seen. The American assemblies, 
and the corresponding temper of the people, were more pow- 
erful than the little influence which the crown possessed. 
What was to be done ? It was necessary either to relinquish 
the government, which could no longer be maintained without 
force, or to employ force to -retain it. The latter was at- 
tempted ; and, as was to be expected, it failed. I say failure 
was to be expected ; because the state of America, and of 
England too, was such, that a government of force could not 
be supposed likely to stand. Henry Till, and Elizabeth 
governed England by a species of force. They induced par- 
liamentary compliance by intimidation. This intimidation has 
given place to inriuence. But every man will perceive that it 
would be impossible to return to intimidation again. And it 

* Project for the Advancement of Religion, t Theo. of Mor. Sent. 



348 



POLITICAL INFLUENCE. PARTY. [ESSAY III. 



was equally impossible to adopt it permanently in the case of 
America. 

And here it maybe observed, in passing, that the separation 
from a mother country of extensive and remote dependencies 
is always to be eventually expected. As the dependency in- 
creases in population, in intelligence, in wealth, and in the 
various points which enable it to be, and which practically 
constitute it, a nation of itself — it increases in the tendency 
to actual separation. This separation may be delayed by the 
peculiar nature of the parent's government, but it can hardly 
be in the end prevented. It is not in the constitution of the 
human species to remain under the supremacy of a foreign 
power, to which they are under no natural subordination, after 
the original causes of the supremacy have passed away. Ac- 
cordingly, there is reason to expect that, in days to come, the 
possessions of the European powers on the other quarters of 
the globe will one after another lapse away. Happy will it 
be for these powers and for the world, if they take counsel 
of the philosophy of human affairs, and of the experience of 
times gone by : — if they are willing tranquilly to yield up a 
superiority of which the reasonableness and the propriety is 
passed — a superiority which no efforts can eventually main- 
tain — and a superiority which really tends not to the welfare 
of the governing, of the governed, or of the world. 

PARTY. 

The system of forming Parties in governments is perfectly 
congruous with the general character of political affairs, but 
totally incongruous with political rectitude. Of this incon- 
gruity considerate men are frequently sensible ; and accord- 
ingly we find that defences of party are set up, and set up by 
men of respectable political character.* To defend a custom 
is to intimate that it is assailed. 

What does the very nature of party imply ] That he who 
adheres to it speaks and votes not always according to the 
dictates of his own judgment, but according to the plans of 
other men. This sacrifice of individual judgment violates 
one of the first and greatest duties of a legislator — to direct 
his separate and unbiassed judgment to the welfare of the state. 
There can be no proper accumulation of individual experience 
and knowledge amongst those who vote with a party. 

But, indeed, the justifications which are attempted do not 

* Fox, I believe, was one of them, and the present Lord John Russell, 
in his Life of Lord Russel, is another. 



CHAP. VII.] 



PARTY. 



349 



refer to the abstract rectitude of becoming one of a party, but 
to the unfailing ground of defending political evil — Expedi- 
ency. An administration, it is said, would not be so likely to 
stand, or an opposition to prevail, when each man votes as he 
thinks rectitude requires, as when he ranges himself under a 
leader. The difference is like that which subsists in war be- 
tween a body of irregular peasantry and a disciplined army : 
each man's arm is as strong in the one case as in the other, 
but each man's is not equally effective. 

Very well. If we are to be told that it is fitting, or honest, 
or decent, that senates and cabinets should act upon the prin- 
ciples of conflicting armies, parties may easily be defended, 
but surely legislators have other business and other duties. 
It only exhibits the wideness of the general departure from 
the proper modes of conducting government and legislation, 
that such arguments are employed. It will be said, that there 
are no means of expelling a bad administration from office 
but by a systematic opposition to its measures. If this were 
true, it would be nothing to the question of rectitude, unless 
it can be shown thai the end sanctions the means. The ques- 
tion is not whether we shall overthrow an administration, but 
whether we shall do what is right. But, even with respect 
to the success of political objects, it is not very certain that 
simple integrity would not be the most efficacious. The man 
who habitually votes on one side, loses, and he ought to lose, 
much of the confidence of other members of the public. At 
what value ought we to estimate the mental principles of a 
man, who forgoes the dictates of his own judgment, and acts 
in opposition to it in order to serve a party ? What is the 
ground upon which we can place confidence in his integrity ? 
Facts may furnish an answer. The speeches, and statements, 
and arguments, of such persons, are listened to with suspi- 
cion ; and a habitual and large deduction is made from their 
weight. This is inevitable. Hearers and the public cannot 
tell whether the speaker is uttering his own sentiments or 
those of others : they cannot tell whether he believes his own 
statements, or is convinced by his own reasoning. So that, 
even when his cause is good and his advocacy just, he loses 
half his influence because men are afraid to rely upon him, 
and because they still do not know whether some illusion is 
not underneath. The mind is kept so constantly jealous of 
fallacies, that it excludes one half of the truth. But when 
the man stands up, of whom it is known that he is sincere, 
that what he says he thinks, and what he asserts he believes, 
the mind opens itself to his statements without apprehension 



350 



PARTY. MINISTERIAL UNION, [ESSAY III. 



of deceit. No deductions are macfe for the overcolourings 
of party. Integrity carries with it its proper sanction. 

Now if, generally, the measures of a party are good, the 
individual support of upright men would probably more effec- 
tually recommend them to a senate and to a nation, than the 
ranked support of men whose uprightness must always be 
questionable and questioned. If the measures are not good, 
it matters not how inefficiently they are supported. Let those 
who now range themselves under political leaders of what- 
ever party, throw away their unworthy shackles ; let them 
convince the legislature and the public that they are abso- 
lutely sincere men ; and it is probable that a vicious policy 
would not be able to stand before them. For other motives 
to opposition than actual viciousness of measures, I have no- 
thing to say. He whose principles allow him to think that 
other motives justify opposition, may very well vote against 
his understanding. The principles and the conduct are con- 
genial ; but both are bad. 

MINISTERIAL UNION. 

The unanimous support or opposition which ordinarily is 
given to a measure by the members of an administration, 
whatever be their private opinions, is a species of party. 
Like other modes of party, it results from the impure condi- 
tion of political affairs ; like them, it is incongruous with 
sound political rectitude — and, like them, it is defended upon 
pleas of expediency. The immorality of this custom is 
easily shown ; because it sacrifices private judgment, involves 
a species of hypocrisy, and defrauds the community of that 
uninfluenced judgment respecting public affairs for which all 
public men are appointed. " Ministers have been known, 
publicly and in unqalified terms, to applaud those very meas- 
ures of a coadjutor which they have freely condemned in 
private."* Is this manly? Is it honest? Is it Christian ? 
If it is not, it is vicious and criminal ; and all arguments in 
its defence — all disquisitions about expediency — are sophis- 
tical and impertinent. 

" The necessity for the co-operation" (I use political lan- 
guage) results from the general impurity of political systems 
—systems in which not reason, simply, and principle, direct, 
but influence also, and the spirit of party — and the love of 
power. Where influence is to be employed, union amongst 
a cabinet is likely to urge it in fuller force : — -Where the 
* Gisborne : Duties of Men. 



CHAP. VIL.] » MINISTERIAL UXIOX. 



351 



spirit of party is to be employed, this union is necessary to 
the object : — Where the love of power is the guide, consis- 
tency and integrity must be sacrificed to its acquisition or re- 
tention. But take away this influence — which is bad ; and 
this spirit of party — which is bad ; and this love of power — 
which is bad ; and the minister may speak and act like a con- 
sistent and a virtuous man. It is with this, as with unnum- 
bered cases in life, that what is called the necessity for a par- 
ticular vicious course of action is quite adventitious, resulting 
in no degree from the operation of sound principles, but from 
the diffused impurity of human institutions. 

But, indeed, the necessity is not perhaps so obvious as is 
supposed. The same reasons as those which make the sup- 
port of a partisan comparatively inefficient, operate upon the 
ministerial advocate. He is regarded as a party man ; and 
as the exertions of a party man his arguments are received. 
People say or think, when such arguments are urged, as some 
men say and think of the labours of the clergy — " What they 
say is a matter of course f — " It is their business ; their 
trade." No one disputes that these feelings have a powerful 
effect in diminishing the practical effect of the labours of the 
pulpit ; and they have the same effect with respect to the 
labours of a ministry. We listen to a minister rather as a 
pleader than as a judge ; and every one knows what dispro- 
portionate regard is paid to these. Why should not ministers 
be judges ? Why should not senates confide in their integ- 
rity, believe their statements, give candid attention to their 
reasonings — as we attend to, and believe, and confide in, what 
is uttered from the bench ? And does any man think so ill 
of mankind as to believe that if an administration acted thus, 
they would not actually possess a greater influence upon the 
minds of men, than they do now ? Even now, when men 
are so habituated to the operation of influence and party, 1 
believe that a- minister is listened to with much greater con- 
• fidence and satisfaction when he dissents from his colleagues, 
than when he makes common cause. We then insensibly 
reflect, that he is no longer the pleader but the judge. The 
independence of his judgment is unquestioned ; and we regard 
it therefore as the judgment of an honest man. 

Uniformity of opinion — or more properly, unity of exertion 
— is not at all necessary to the stability of a cabinet. Several 
recent administrations in our own country have been divided 
in sentiment upon great questions of national policy, and their 
members have opposed one another in parliament. With 
what ill effects ? Nay, has not that very contrariety recom- 



352 



MINISTERIAL UNION. » [ESSAY III. 



mended the reasonings of all, as those of sincere integrity ? 
It is usual with some politicians to declare vehemently against 
" unnatural coalitions in cabinets." As to individuals, they, 
no doubt, may be censurable for political tergiversation ; but 
as to cabinets being composed of men of different sentiments 
— of sentiments so different as their respective judgments 
may occasion — it is both allowable and expedient. It is just 
what a wise community would wish, because it affords a se- 
curity for that canvass of public measures which is likely to 
illustrate their character and tendencies. But it is a sorrow- 
ful and a sickening sight, to contemplate a number of per- 
sons frankly urging their various and disagreeing opinions at 
a council board, and as soon as some resolution is come to, 
all proceeding to a senate, and one half urging the very ar- 
guments against which they have just been contending, and 
by which they are not yet convinced. Is freedom of can- 
vass for any reasons useful and right at the council board ? 
Is it not, for the very same reasons, useful and right in a sen- 
ate 1 The answer would be, yes, if public measures were 
regarded as the measures of the community, and not of the 
administration ; because then the desire and judgment of the 
community would be sought by the public and independent dis- 
cussion of the question, Here, then, at last is one great 
cause of the evil — that a large proportion of public acts are 
the measures of administrations ; and, being such, adminis- 
trations unitedly support them whatever be the individual 
opinions of their members. These things ought not so to be. 
I would not indeed say that, from the crown of the head to 
the sole of the foot, there is no soundness in the system — but 
the evil is mingled deplorably with the good. It is sometimes 
in practice almost forgotten, that an administration is an Ex- 
ecutive rather than a Legislative body — that their original and 
natural business is rather to do what the legislature and con- 
stitution directs than to direct the legislature themselves. I 
say the original and natural business ; for, how congenial so- 
ever the great influence of administrations in public affairs 
may be with the present tenor of policy, and especially of 
international policy, it is not at all congenial with the original 
purpose and simple and proper objects of civil government 
— the welfare of the community, as determined by an en- 
lightened survey of the national mind. 

Of the want of advertence to these simple and proper ob- 
jects, one effect has been that, in this country, administrations 
have frequently given up their offices when the senate has 
rejected their measures. This is an unequivocal indication 



CHAP. VIII.] 



BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 



353 



of the wrong station in which cabinets are placed in the legis- 
lature — because it indicates, that if a cabinet cannot carry its 
point, it is supposed to be unfit for its office. All this is natu- 
ral enough upon the present system, but it is very unnatural 
when cabinets are regarded, either in their ministerial ca- 
pacity, as executive officers, or in their legislative capacity, as 
ordinary members of the senate. Executive officers are to do 
what the constitution and the legislature directs : — members 
of a senate are to assist that legislature in directing aright : 
in all which, no necessity is involved for ministers to resign 
their offices because the measures which they think best are 
not thought best by the majority. That a ministry should 
sometimes judge amiss is to be expected, because it is to be 
expected of all men : but surely in a sound state of political 
institutions, their fallibility would not be a necessary argument 
of unfitness for their offices, nor would the rejection of some 
of their opinions be a necessary evidence of a loss of the con- 
fidence of the public. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 

Influence of the Crown — House of Lords — Candidates for a peerage — 
Sudden creation of peers — The Bench of Bishops — Proxies — House of 
Commons — The wishes of the People — Extension of the elective 
franchise — Universal suffrage — Frequent elections — Modes of election 
— Annual parliaments — Qualifications of voters and representatives — 
Of choosing the clergy — Duties of a representative — Systematic oppo- 
sition — Placemen and pensioners — Posthumous fame. 

That the British Constitution is relatively good, is satis- 
factorily indicated by its effects. Without indulging in the 
ordinary gratulations of our " own country being the first coun- 
try in the world," it is unquestionably, in almost every respect, 
amongst the first — amongst the first in liberty, in intellectual 
and moral excellence, and in whatever dignifies and adorns 
mankind. A country which thus surpasses other nations, 
and which has, with little interruption, possessed a nearly 
uniform constitution for ages, may well rest assured that its 
constitution is good. To say that it is good, is however very 



354 



BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 



[essay III. 



different from saying that it is theoretically perfect, or practi- 
cally as good as its theory will allow. Under a King, Lords, 
and Commons, we have prospered ; but it does not therefore 
follow that under a King, Lords, and Commons, we might not 
have prospered more. 

Whatever may be the future allotment of our country as to 
the form of its government, whether at any period, or at what, 
the progressive advancement of the human species will occa- 
sion an alteration, we are not at present concerned to enquire. 
Of one thing, indeed, we may be assured, that if it should be 
the good pleasure of Providence that this advancement in ex- 
cellence shall take place, the practical principles of the gov- 
ernment and its constitutional form, will be gradually moulded 
and modified into a state of adaptation to the then condition 
of mankind. 

I. Of the regal part of the British Constitution I would say 
little. The sovereign is, in a great degree, identified with 
an administration ; and into the principles which would regu- 
late ministerial conduct, the preceding chapters have attempted 
some enquiry. 

Yet it may be observed that, supposing ministerial influence 
to be " necessary" to the constitution, there appears consider- 
able reason to think that its amount may be safely and rightly 
diminished. As this influence becomes needless in proportion 
to the actual rectitude of political measures ; as there is some 
reason to hope that this rectitude is increasing ; and as the 
public capacity to judge soundly of political measures is mani- 
festly increasing also ; it is probable that some portion of the 
influence of the crown might be given up, without any danger 
to the constitution or the public weal. And, waiving all ref- 
erence to the essential moral character of influence, it is to be 
remembered, that no degree of it is defensible, even by the 
politician, but that which apparently subserves the reasonable 
purposes of government. 

It is recorded that in 1741, in Scotland, "sixteen peers 
were chosen literally according to the list transmitted from 
court."* Such a fact would convince a man, without further 
enquiry, that there must have been something very unsound 
in the ministerial politics of the day ; or at any rate, (which 
is nearly the same thing,) something very discordant with the 
general mind. 

In 1793, and whilst, of course, the Irish Parliament existed, 
a bill was brought, into that parliament to repeal some of the 
Catholic disabilities. This bill the "parliament loudly, in- 
* Smollet: Hist. England, v. 3, p. 71. 



CHAP. VIII.] 



BRITISH COXSTITUTIOX. 



355 



dignantly, and resolutely rejected." A few months afterwards, 
a similar bill was introduced under the auspices of the gov- 
ernment. Pitt had taken counsel of Burke, and wished to 
grant the Catholics relief : and when the viceroy's secretary 
accordingly brought in a bill, two members only opposed it ; 
and at the second reading, it was opposed but by one vote. 
Now, whatever may be said of the " necessity" of ministerial 
influence for the purposes of state, nothing can be said in fa- 
vour of such influence as this. Every argument which would 
show its expediency, would show even more powerfully the 
impurity of the system which could require it. 

It is common to hear complaints of ministerial influence in 
parliament. " That kind of influence which the noble lord 
alludes to," said Fox in one of his speeches, " I shall ever 
deem unconstitutional ; for by the influence of the crown, he 
means the influence of the crown in parliament."* But, if it 
is concluded that influence is " necessary," it seems idle to 
complain of its exercise in the senate. Where should it be 
exerted with effect 1 Whether it be constitutional it is diffi- 
cult to say, because it is difficult to define where constitutional 
acts end and unconstitutional acts begin. But, it may safely 
be concluded that, in such matters, questions of constitutional 
rectitude are little relevant. Influence you say — and in a cer- 
tain sense you say it truly — is necessary. To what purpose, 
then, can it be to complain of the exercise of that influence 
in those places in which only or principally it is effectual ? 
It would be impossible for persons, with our views of political 
rectitude, to execute the office of minister upon any system 
that approached, in its character, to the present ; but were it 
otherwise, I would advise a minister openly to avow the exer- 
cise of influence and to defend it. — This were the frank, and 
I think the rational course. Why should a man affect secrecy 
or concealment about an act " politically necessary." I would 
not talk about disinterestedness and independence ; but tell 
the world that influence was needful, and that I exerted it. 
Not that such an avowal would stop, or ought to stop, the 
complaints of virtuous men."* The morality of politics is not 
so obscure, but that thousands will always perceive that the 
exertion of influence and the submission to it, is morally 
vicious. This conflict will continue. Artifice and deception 
are " necessary" to a swindler, but all honest men know and 
feel that the artifice and deception are wrong. 

II. It appears to have been discovered, or assumed, in most 
free states, that it is expedient that there should be two de- 
* Fell's Public Life of C. J. Fox. 



356 



BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 



[ESSAY III. 



liberative assemblies, of which one shall, from its constitution, 
possess less of a democratical tendency than the other. Not 
that, in a purer state of society, two such assemblies would 
be necessary ; but because, while separate individuals or sep- 
arate classes of men pursue their peculiar interests, and are 
swayed by their peculiar prejudices, it is found needful to 
obstruct one class of interests and tendencies by another. 
Such a purpose is answered by the British House of Lords. 

The privileges of the members of this house are such as to 
offer considerable temptation to their political virtue. A body 
of men, whose eminence consists in artificial distinctions be- 
tween them and the rest of the community, are likely to desire 
to make these distinctions needlessly great ; and for that pur- 
pose to postpone the public welfare to the interests of an order. 
We all know that there is a collective as well as an individ- 
ual ambition. It is a truth which a peer should habitually 
inculcate upon himself, that however rank and title may be 
conferred for the gratification of the possessor, the legislative 
privileges of a peer are to be held exclusively subservient to 
the general good. I use the word " exclusively" in its strict- 
est sense : so that, if even the question should come, whether 
any part or the whole of the privileges of the peerage should 
be withdrawn, or the general good should be sacrificed, I 
should say that no reasonable question could exist respecting 
the proper alternative. Were I a peer, I should not think 
myself at liberty to urge the privileges of my order in opposi- 
tion to the public weal : for this were evidently to postpone 
the greater interests to the less. If rulers of all lands, if 
civil government itself, are simply the officers of the nation, 
surely no one class of rulers is at liberty to put its pretensions 
in opposition to the national advantage. 

The love of title and of rank constitutes one of the great 
temptations of the political man. He can obtain them only 
from the crown : and it is not usual to bestow them except 
upon those who support the administration of the day. The 
intensity of the desire which some men feel for these distinc- 
tions, has a correspondently intense effect. Lord Chatham 
said, " that he had known men of great ambition for power 
and dominion, many whose characters were tarnished by gla- 
ring defects, some with many vices — who, nevertheless, could 
be prevailed upon to join in the best public measures ; but 
the moment he found any man who had set himself down as 
a candidate for a peerage, he despaired of his ever being a 
friend to his country?"* This displays a curious political 
* Quoted by Fox. — Fell's Memoirs. 



CHAP. VIII.] 



BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 



357 



phenomenon. Can the reader give a better solution than the 
supposition that, in the love itself of title, there is something 
little and low, and that the minds which can be so anxious 
for it, are commonly too little and too low to sacrifice their 
hopes to friendship for their country ? — -Many who are not 
candidates for peerages, nevertheless look upon them with a 
wishing eye ; and some who have attained to the lower hon- 
ours of the order, are equally solicitous for advancement to 
the higher. So that even upon those on whom the temptation 
is not so powerful as that of which Chatham speaks — some 
temptation is laid ; — a temptation of which it were idle to dis- 
pute that the aggregate effect is great. 

If, without reference to the existing state of Britain, a man 
should ask whether the legislators of a nation ought to be sub- 
jected to such temptation — whether it were a judicious politi- 
cal institution, I should answer, No ; because I should judge 
that a legislative assembly ought to have no inducements or 
motives foreign to the general good. This appears to be so 
obviously true, that the necessity, if there be a necessity, for 
an assembly so constituted, only evinces how imperfect the 
political character of a people is. There would be no need 
for having recourse to an objectionable species of assembly, 
if it were not wanted to counteract or to effect purposes which 
a purely constituted assembly could not attain. 

In estimating the relative worthiness of objects of human 
pursuit, a peerage does not appear to rank high. I know not, 
indeed, how it happens that men contemplate it with so much 
complacency ; and that so few are found who appear to doubt 
whether it is one of the most reasonable and worthy objects 
of human desire. A title! Only think what a title is, and 
what it is not. It is a thing which philosophy may reasona- 
bly hold cheap ; a thing which partakes of the character of 
the tinsel watch, for which the new-breeched urchin looks 
with anxious eyes, and by which, when he has got it, he 
thinks he is made a greater man than before. If such be the 
character of title when brought into comparison with the dig- 
nity of man, what is it when it is compared with the dignity 
of the Christian ? Nothing. It may be affirmed, without any 
apprehension of error, that the greater the degree in which 
any man is a Christian, the less will be his wish to be called 
a lord ; and that when he attains to the " fulness of the stat- 
ure" of a Christian man, no wish will remain. — If additional 
motives can be urged to reduce our ambition of title, some, 
perhaps, may be found in considering the grounds upon which 
it has too frequently been conferred. Queen Anne, when 



358 



BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 



[essay III. 



once the ministry could not carry a measure in the upper 
house, made twelve new peers* at once. These, of course, 
voted for the measure. What honourable and elevated mind 
would have purchased one of these titles at the expense of 
the caustic question which a member put when they were go- 
ing to give their first vote — " Are you going to vote by your 
foreman V 

Whether the heads of a Christian church should possess 
seats in the legislature, is a question that has often been dis- 
cussed — If a Christian bishop can attend to legislative affairs 
without infringing upon the time and attention which is due 
to his peculiar office, there appears nothing in that office 
which disqualifies him for legislative functions. The better 
a man is, the more, as a general rule, he is fit for a legislator ; 
so that, assuming that bishops are peculiarly Christian men, 
it is not unfit that they should assist in the councils of the 
nation. Nevertheless, it must be conceded, that there is no 
peculiar congruity between the office of the Christian over- 
seer and that of an agent in political affairs. They are not 
incompatible, indeed, but the connexion is not natural. Poli- 
tics do not form the proper business of a Christian shepherd. 
They are wholly foreign to his proper business ; and that 
retirement from the things of the world which Christianity 
requires of her ministers, and which she must be supposed 
peculiarly to require of her more elevated ministers, indicates 
the propriety of meddling but little in affairs of state. But, 
when it comes to be proposed that all the heads of a Chris- 
tian church shall be selected for legislators, because they are 
heads of the church — the impropriety becomes manifest and 
great. To make a high religious office the qualification for 
a political office, is manifestly wrong. It may be found now 
and then that a good bishop is fit for a useful legislator — but 
because you have elevated a man to a more onerous and re- 
sponsible office in the church, forthwith to superadd an oner- 
ous and responsible office in the state, is surely not to consult 
the dictates of Christianity or of reason. Nor is it rational 
or Christian forth with to add a temporal peerage. If there 
be any one thing, not absolutely vicious, which is incongru- 
ous with the proper temper and character of an exalted shep- 
herd of the flock, it is temporal splendour. Such splendour 
accords very well with the political character of the Romish 
church — but with Protestantism, with Christianity, it has no 
accordance. The splendours of title are utterly dissimilar 
in their character to the character of the heads of the church, 
as that character is indicated in the New Testament. How 



CHAP. VIII.] 



BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 



359 



preposterous is the association in idea of " My Lord" with a 
Paul or a Barnabas ! — The truth, indeed, is, that this species 
of fornication did not originate in religion nor in religious 
motives. It sprung up with the corruptions of the papacy; 
and in this, as in some other instances, we, who have purified 
the vicious doctrine, have clung to the vicious practice. 

To these considerations is to be added another : that the 
extent of jurisdiction which is assigned to the bishops of this 
country, is such as to occupy, if the office be rightly exe- 
cuted, a large portion of a bishop's time — a portion so large, 
that if he be exemplary as a bishop, he can hardly be exem- 
plary as a legislator. If, as will perhaps be admitted, the 
diligent and conscientious pastor of an ordinary parish has 
a sufficient employment for his time, it cannot be supposed 
that a bishop has less. He who presides over hundreds of 
parishes and hundreds of pastors, and rightly presides over 
them, can surely find little time for attendance in the senate ; 
especially when that attendance takes him, as it necessarily 
does, far away from the inferior shepherds and from the 
flocks. 

But, when it comes to be considered that our bishops are 
the heads of an established church, we are presented with a 
very different field of enquiry. That which is not congruous 
with Christianity may be congruous with a religious estab- 
lishment. Nor, in a religious establishment like that which 
obtains in England, would there, perhaps, be any propriety 
in dismissing bishops from the house of Lords. They have 
to watch over other interests than those of religion — poli- 
tical interests ; and where shall they efficiently watch over 
them if they have no voice in political affairs ? Bishops 
in this country have not merely to " feed the flock of God 
which is among them," but to take care that that flock and 
their shepherds retain their privileges and their supremacy : 
so that if I were asked, whether bishops ought to have a seat 
in the legislature, I should answer — If you mean by a bishop 
a head of a Christian church, he has other and better busi- 
ness : — if, by a bishop you mean the head of an established 
church, the question must be determined by the question of 
the rectitude of an established church itself. 

Without stopping to decide this question, it may be ob- 
served, that some serious mischiefs result from -the institution 
as it exists. A bishop should be not only of unimpeachable, 
but, as far as may be, of untempted virtue. His office as a 
peer subjects him to great temptations. Bishops are more 
dependent upon the crown than any other class of peers. 



360 



BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 



[ESSAY III. 



because vacancies for elevation in the church are continually 
occurring ; and for these vacancies a bishop hopes. Since 
he cannot generally expect to obtain them by an opposition, 
however conscientious, to the minister of the day, he is placed 
in a situation which no good man ought to desire for himself ; 
that of a powerful temptation to sacrifice his -integrity to his 
interests. How frequently, or how far, that temptation pre- 
vails, I presume not to determine ; but it is plain, whatever 
be the cause, that the minister can count upon the support of 
the bishops more confidently than upon any other class of 
peers. This is not the experience of one minister, or of two, 
but, in general language, of all. History states informally, 
and as an unquestioned circumstance, that " from the bench 
of bishops the court usually expects the greatest complaisance 
and submission."* I perceive nothing in the nature of the 
Christian office to induce this support of the minister of the 
day. I do not see why a Christian pastor should do this 
rather than a legislator of another station ; for it will hardly 
be contended that there is so much goodness and purity in 
ministerial transactions, that a Christian pastor must support 
them because they are so pure and so good. What conclu- 
sion then remains, but that temptation is presented, and that 
it prevails ? That this, simply regarded, is an evil no man 
can doubt ; but let him remember that the evil is not neces- 
sarily incidental even to the legislating bishop. There may 
be bishops without solicitude for translations, for there may 
be a church without dependence on the Crown, or connexion 
with the state. Whilst this connexion and this dependence 
remains, I do not say that ecclesiastical peers cannot be ex- 
- empt from unworthy influence, but there is no hope of exemp- 
tion in the present condition of mankind. 

The system which obtains in the House of Lords, of ac- 
cepting ■proxies in divisions, appears strangely inconsistent 
with propriety and reason. It intimates utter contempt of 
the debates of the house, because it virtually declares that 
the arguments of the speakers are of no weight or concern. 
Who can tell, or who ought to tell, when he gives his proxy 
to another, whether the discussion might not alter his views 
and make him vote on the other side 1 Proxies are congru- 
ous enough with a system of legislation which is conducted 
upon maxims of interest and party ; but if we suppose legis- 
lation to proceed upon evidence and reasoning, they are a 
preposterous mockery of common sense. 

The number of peers has rapidly increased. This may 
* Hume's England. 



CHAP. VIII.] 



BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 



361 



be a subject of regret to the peerage itself, because every 
addition to its number may be regarded as a reduction from 
the dignity of each. The dignity is relative, and consists in 
the distinction between them and other men, which distinc- 
tion becomes less as peers become common. As the peerage 
is progressively increased in number, a lord will be progres- 
sively reduced in practical rank. The title remains the same, 
but the actual distinction between him and other men is 
waning away. But, though this may cause regret to a peer, 
it ought to cause none to the man of reason or the patriot. 
As to reason, if our estimates of title be accurate, its distinc- 
tions are. sufficiently vain ; and as to patriotism, if our country 
is increasing in knowledge and in excellence, it is increasing 
in its ability to direct its own policy without the intervention 
of an order of peers ; so that, supposing the cessation of that 
order to be hereafter desirable, the patriot may hope that its 
distinctions will be yielded up to the general weal more wil- 
lingly when they have become insignificant by diffusion, than 
if they were great by being possessed but by a few. 

In reflecting then upon the political character of the House 
of Lords, it is to be remembered that its utility appears to be 
conditional — conditional upon the state of the community. It 
may be needed to check intemperate measures — to restrain, 
for instance, the vicious encroachments of democracy ; but it 
is not needed in any other sense. It is like the physician's 
prescription or the surgeon's knife — useful in an unhealthy 
state of the social body, but useless if it were sound. The 
reader will say that this is strong language, and so it is ; but 
he has no reason to complain if it is the language of truth ; 
and that it is true, he may perhaps be convinced by authority, 
upon such a subject, less questionable than mine. " Were 
the voice of the people always dictated by reflection, did every 
man, or even one man in a hundred, think for himself, or actu- 
ally consider the measure he was about to approve or censure, 
or even were the common people tolerably steadfast in the 
judgment which they formed, I should hold the interference 
of a superior order not only superfluous, but wrong"* 

III. The House of Commons is constitutionally the repre- 
sentative of the people, and the degree in which it fulfils this, 
its constitutional office, is to be estimated by the degree in 
which the public wish is actually represented by its members. 
" It is essential to the happiness of the people, that they 
should be convinced that they and the members of this house ) 
* Paley : Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. vi. c. 7. 
31 



362 



BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 



[ESSAY III. 



feel an identity of interest ; that the nation at large, and the 
representatives of the people, hold a conformity of sentiment. 
This is the essence of a proper representative assembly."* 
It is not necessary to the just fulfilment of this office, that 
every- measure which a majority of the people desires, should 
be adopted by the House, because its members are often bet- 
ter able to judge what is good for the majority, than they are 
themselves ; and because, sometimes, popular opinions are 
not, I think, capricious, but fluctuating, and unreasonably ve- 
hement. There was a time when the populace were in tu- 
mult, and almost in insurrection, because the Legislature had 
erected turnpikes ; but if three-fourths of the population of 
the country had joined in the outcry, it would not have been 
a good reason for repealing the act. But, if the public wish 
is not always to be gratified by the House of Commons, it is 
always to be expressed within its walls. The house should 
know what the people desire, though they are at liberty, if 
they think it needful, to reject that desire. This, it is obvi- 
ous, is a right which the people may claim of the republican 
part of the constitution. It were neither decorous nor wise 
to show even impatience at the respectful petitions of the 
people ; — not decorous, for it implies forgetfulness that the 
house is the servant of the public ; — not wise, for a candid 
attention to the public representations, even when they are 
not acted upon, is one of the surest means of conciliating 
the esteem, and of administering to the satisfaction of the 
community. 

In estimating the extent to which the decisions of the House 
of Commons ought actually to correspond with the public 
wishes, no narrow limits should be prescribed. It is here, 
if any where, that the people are to be heard. Both the other 
branches of the constitution tend naturally to their separate 
and privileged interests ; so that, if in the senate of a repub- 
lican government the people ought to be represented, much 
more emphatically ought they to be represented by the Com- 
mons in a government like our own. 

The most accurate test of the degree in which the British 
House of Commons fulfils this its primary office, is to be 
sought in the deliberate judgments of reasonable and thinking 
men : not of party men, or interested men, but of the tempe- 
rate and the good. Now there is reason to think, that in the 
judgments of this portion of the community, there is not a 
just and sufficient identity between the public voice and the 
measures of this house. 

* William Pitt: Gilford's Life, v. iii. 



CHAP. VIII.] BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 



363 



But, supposing the practical representation to be defective, 
how is the defect to be repaired ? A question this of far less 
easy solution than some politicians would persuade us ! Not 
frequency of parliaments, not extensions of the franchise, not 
altering the modes of election, will be sufficient. The evil 
is seated primarily, and essentially, in the impure condition, 
in the imperfect virtue of man. To those who are imperfect 
and impure, temptation is offered : the temptation perhaps of 
party — perhaps of interest — perhaps of resentment — perhaps 
of ambition. You cannot make men proof against these 
temptations but by making them good ; and modes of electing, 
or frequency of election, will not do this. The only reforma- 
tion must result from the reformation of the heart. Electors 
themselves are not solicitous to elect good men : they are in- 
fluenced by passion, and interest, and party. How then 
should, they select those who are independent, and disinter- 
ested, and temperate ? 

But evils which cannot be removed may be diminished ; 
and since the evil in question indicates an insufficient degree 
of liberty, both civil and political, it may be of advantage to 
enquire whether both cannot be, and ought not to be increased. 

Now, remembering that it lies upon the legislature to prove 
that the present institutions are the best — what is the evidence 
that mischief would arise from an extension of the franchise 
and from an alteration of the modes of election ? We are not 
required to evince that benefit would arise from such meas- 
ures ; because their propriety is dictated by the principles 
of political truth, unless it is shown that they would be perni- 
cious. Assuredly, in contemplating mere probabilities, it is 
more probable that a representative will be virtuously chosen, 
when he is chosen by a thousand men than when by only 
ten. The reason is simple, that it is much more difficult to 
offer vicious motives to the electors. If the probability of 
advantage in such an alteration is disputable, it must be by 
the production of very strong probabilities on the other side. 
And until those probabilities are adduced, I see not how it 
can be denied that from the public is withheld a portion of 
their civil rights. There is always one powerful reason for 
an extension of the legal right of election, which is, that it 
tends to satisfy the people. This satisfaction is of impor- 
tance, whether the wish of the people be in itself desirable 
or not : so that of two measures which in other respects were 
equally eligible, that would become the best and the right 
one, which imparted the greatest satisfaction to the commu- 
nity. It cannot be hoped that this satisfaction will ever pre- 



364 



BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 



[ESSAY III. 



vail during the continuance of the present state of the fran- 
chise. Its irregular and inconsistent character will always 
(even setting aside its consequences) give rise to uneasiness 
and complaints. A large county can never think political 
justice is exercised while it sends no more members than a 
little borough. Birmingham and Manchester will never think 
it is exercised, whilst Old Sarum sends two members and 
they send none. 

There are, no doubt, many difficulties interposed in the 
way of the legislature in proceeding to a reformation — which 
difficulties, however, will generally be found to result from 
the existing impurity of the present system. It is not per- 
haps impossible that, if a House of Commons were selected 
by any approach to universal suffrage, it would ere long in- 
terfere with the established modes of governing. Many, it 
is probable, would feel that their prejudices were outraged, 
and their interests invaded, and their*privileges diminished or 
takgfl away. These prospects interpose difficulties ; and yet 
unless these prejudices are reasonable, and these interests 
Virtuous, and these privileges dictated by the public good, it 
will be seen that the difficulties of reform result, not from any 
defect in the principles of Political Truth, but from the con- 
flict between the operation of those principles and exception- 
able systems. 

Not, indeed, that a representative body, however elected, 
is to be concluded as necessarily temperate and wise. There 
is much reason to fear, in the present state of private virtue, 
that if the House of Commons were a purely popular assem- 
bly, it might both injudiciously and unjustifiably excite poli- 
tical distractions. If, on the one hand, they found that any 
existing institutions required amendment they would probably, 
on the other hand, seek to establish popular power in opposi- 
tion to the general good. 

Nevertheless, there appears sufficient reason for thinking 
that some alteration, and considerable alteration, might be 
made in the system of representation, which would do good 
without doing evil. If the British empire is not prepared for 
a purely popular representation, it is, I think, prepared for a 
representation more popular than that which obtains. Mild 
and gradual alteration is perhaps the best. The franchise 
may be extended, one by one, to new districts or new towns, 
and taken away or modified, one by one, from places in which 
the electors are few, or in which they are corrupt. By such 
means the reformation might keep pace, and only keep pace, 
with the general progress of the nation. The prospect of 



CHAP. VIII.] BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 



365 



successive amendment would tend to satisfy the public, and 
the general end be eventually answered by innoxious means. 

Some want of enlargement of views appears to exist with 
respect to the propriety and the right of the legislature to re- 
move the elective franchise. It seems to be thought that a 
borough ought not to be deprived of it, unless its corruption 
is both general and distinctly proved. But why 1 The fran- 
chise is not possessed for the gratification of the inhabitants 
of a particular spot, but for the national good. It might, no 
doubt, have originally been given for their gratification, but 
this was always an unreasonable motive for granting it. If 
the general advantage requires the transfer of the right of 
election, it were strange indeed if the inhabitants of a little 
town ought to prevent it by exclaiming, Do not encroach upon 
our privileges ! As to the property vested in the privilege, it 
is founded, if not in corruption, in political impropriety. For 
a householder to say, I have given a hundred pounds more for 
my premises because they conveyed a right of voting, or for 
a patron to say, I have given an extra five thousand for a 
manor because it enabled me to nominate two representatives, 
is surely a very insufficient reason for continuing a franchise 
that is adverse to the common weal. However, it is prob- 
able that the great object is not to take away privileges but 
to extend them, and by that extension to secure the proba- 
bility of uninfluenced elections. 

Universal Suffrage is a by-word of political scorn : and 
yet it is probable that the country will one day be fit for the 
adoption of universal suffrage. The objections to it are 
founded — as, antecedently to enquiry, I should expect they 
would be founded — upon the ignorant and vicious state of 
mankind. If knowledge and virtue increase, universal suf- 
frage may hereafter be rightly adopted. — If they are now in- 
creasing, approaches^ towards such suffrage are desirable now. 
Nor perhaps is the public preparation for these approaches so 
little as some men suppose. A part of our objections to it are 
quite fortuitous and accidental, and easily removable by legis- 
lative enactments. Nor again is it to be forgotten, that some 
of the states in the American Union do actually adopt univer- 
sal suffrage, or something that is very much like it. Upon 
this subject it is always to be remembered, that unless the 
withholding of the privilege of election is necessary to the 
national welfare, the possession of it is, in strictness, a civil 
right. It can never be shown upon other grounds than ex- 
pediency, why one man should possess the privilege whilst 
his neighbour should not. 

31* 



366 



BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 



[ESSAY III. 



The present modes of election are productive of much evil 
— evil by facilitating undue influence — evil by occasioning 
immorality and riot — and evil by attaching to the idea of fre- 
quent elections ideas of national inquietude and confusion. 
When we see, at the time of an election, a multitude of men 
brought together, many of them perhaps from a distance, and 
fed and lodged at the expense of one of the candidates, we 
certainly see that the door is opened wide for the entrance of 
corruption. In 1696 an Act was passed, " for voiding all the 
elections of parliament men, at which the elected had been 
at any expense in meat, drink, or money, to procure votes."* 
"When we see the neighbouring tenantry of the several large 
landowners, (petty freeholders though they be,) classed in 
separate bodies, and voting, almost to a man, for the favourite 
of their landlord, we see either that improper influence is 
grossly employed, or that the exercise of private judgment is, 
with such voters, only a name. If indeed there were no pos- 
sibility of obtaining more considerate votes from the popula- 
tion, I know not that much is, to be hoped from a great exten- 
sion of the franchise, or from an alteration of the modes of 
election. — The riot and confusion of elections is so great, that 
politicians find it needful to advise dissolutions of parliament, 
at periods when it is supposed that the excitement may be. 
safely occasioned without endangering mischief to the gene- 
ral tranquillity. It would not be found a small item in the na- 
tional guilt, if we were to compute the amount of private 
vice, of intemperance, profaneness, and debauchery, which a 
general election occasions. — These evils, again are urged 
against proposals for increasing the frequency of elections ! 
Thus one vicious system becomes an excuse for another. 
You are afraid to endeavour parliamentary integrity by fre- 
quent elections, because your bad system of elections pro- 
duces so much mischief ! The simple and obvious remedy 
is, to elect representatives on a less objectionable system. A 
few propositions respecting the modes of election, will prob- 
ably not be rejected by reasonable men. 

That the elector should not be obliged to go to a distance 
from his own home": — because, if the place of election be 
distant, he will either refuse to go — which nullifies the insti- 
tution with respect to him ; — or he will go, and expect to be 
reimbursed his expenses and his loss of time — which leads, 
almost inevitably, to corruption. 

That candidates should be at no expense in conducting the 
election : — because their payments will operate as bribes — be- 
* Smollett : History of England 



CHAP. VIII.] 



BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 



367 



cause the necessity of expense precludes virtuous and able 
men, who cannot afford it from being chosen — and because 
he who has, in this sense, purchased his seat, is in danger of 
thinking himself at liberty to repay himself by seeking the 
rewards of political subserviency. 

That it ought not to be knoicn for what candidate an elector 
votes ;* because, if it is known, the elector will probably be 
afraid to vote for the man of his own choice, lest some friend 
of an adverse candidate, in whose good offices he is inter- 
ested, should withdraw them. 

These propositions tend to the recommendation of some 
species of ballot for securing secrecy ; of elections at the public 
expense, for excluding the mischiefs of expenses to the can- 
didate ; and of the visit, probably, of proper officers from house 
to house, to exclude the mischiefs of requiring electors to 
leave their homes. Such institutions would, I believe, pre- 
vent many, at least, of the mischiefs, moral and political, of 
the present system ; and would take away from the advocate 
of long-lived parliaments one popular reason in their favour. 

[" Annual Parliaments" is another by-word of contempt ; 
and perhaps they will never be expedient. This is one ques- 
tion ; the expediency of septennial parliaments is another. 
Nor is it a very philosophical nor a very honest mode of con- 
temning an alteration, to assume that there is no practical in- 
termediate period between one year and seven. The Ameri- 
can House of representatives is elected for two years, and as 
their senate also is a representative body, whilst our House of 
Lords is not, it is probable that biennial parliaments, with a 
reformed mode of election, would be practicable and bene- 
ficial here.] 

[The electors of a district choose a man of whom they 
hope rather than know the character. They find in the course 
of a year or two that he is unable or unwilling to discharge 
his public duty. To prevent such electors from making ano- 
ther choice — to oblige them, for seven years, to be, in effect, 
destitute of a representation, is a serious grievance, and it 
may be a serious evil.] 

* I am disposed to acknowledge that this secrecy of suffrages is not 
congruous with that manly independence which it were desirable to pro- 
mote. In a better state of society open voting appears the more virtu- 
ous and honourable course ; for why should a man desire to conceal that 
which he thinks it right to do ? Besides, Balloting endangers the prac- 
tice of hypocrisy, by promising or pretending to vote according to the 
wish of another, and taking advantage of the secrecy to vote against it. 
Yet I see not that these consequences are such as to vitiate the system 
as applicable and as expedient in the present day. 



368 



BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 



[ESSAY III. 



[A little before a dissolution there is sometimes a manifest 
endeavour to conciliate the public by the adoption of some 
measure which they approve. Can it be doubted that there 
would be an advantage in making such measures more fre- 
quently necessary ? — or that more frequent parliaments would 
perceive the necessity, and act upon it ?] 

With respect to the qualifications for voting, no rule can be 
prescribed, because no rule can define how large a portion of 
the people, or whether the whole ought to possess votes. 
The security of the virtuous exercise of the privilege is 
manifestly the object to be attained — which security must be 
sought according to some general rule. It may be doubted 
whether (until all men are fit to become electors) any general 
rule is better than that of amount of property ; not so much 
because the possession of property exempts men from vicious 
influence, as because, amongst the possessors of some com- 
petent property, is the largest portion of thinking men. We 
want not only an unbiassed, but a rational judgment. In the 
present state of property, the preference, in towns, of free- 
holders to renters, appears to be carried too far. The man 
who rents a house for forty pounds a-year, is much more 
likely to give a free and considerate vote than he who pos- 
sesses only a freehold of three or four pounds. Whatever 
qualification is required, it should be universally uniform. At 
any rate, it should vary only in compliance with the local ne- 
cessities of a district. " Freedom" of burghs and cities, and 
the rules by which freedom is obtainable, are relics of a bar- 
barous state of policy — relics which appear unworthy of the 
present age. They are like the local jurisdictions of char- 
tered magistracy, which one of our judges recently reprobated 
from the bench as blots in the constitution. 

No qualification should be required in a representative, but 
the single and sufficient one, that his constituents prefer him 
to any other man. It is a hardship upon them and upon him 
to thwart their choice — the best perhaps that could be made 
— because the candidate does not possess a certain amount 
of wealth. The case is different from that of the electors ; 
for though the exaction of wealth in a representative may ex- 
clude some of the fittest men in the country to assist the 
councils of the state, yet from the eligibility of every man, 
there is no danger that such a proportion of poorer men would 
be elected, as to impede the legislature by their ignorance or 
vice. 

The peculiar circumstances of a people may indeed occa- 
sion the propriety of requiring some qualification in their le- 



CHAP. VIII.] 



British! constitution. 



369 



gislators. When the American colonies had separated them- 
selves from England, and were anxious to perpetuate their 
independence, and when they observed that their country was 
continually replenishing with new adventurers, it was per- 
haps reasonable to enact, that the members of their govern- 
ment should have been American citizens a certain number 
of years. But local and temporary necessities do not affect 
the general truth. 

Canvassing for votes is a vulgar and unworthy custom. I 
know not how it happens that a man of honourable mind is 
content to wander over the country, and call obeisantly at the 
doors of ignorant and low men, to solicit them to choose him 
for their representative. Why, if they prefer him they ought 
to choose him without solicitation. If they do not, they ought 
not to choose him with it. I should not like the conscious- 
ness that I possessed my seat, not because I deserved it, but 
because I begged the voters to elect me. Gentlemen, I doubt 
not, often feel the humiliation, and experience the disgust of 
these canvasses. It is one amongst the many sacrifices of 
manly dignity which are connected with political affairs. 

To an enquirer who was uninformed of the national circum- 
stances, it might appear an unaccountable absurdity to preclude 
Christian ministers from becoming the representative legis- 
lators of a Christian people. The better a man is, the better 
fitted he is for a legislator ; and assuming that Christian pas- 
tors are amongst the best men, there seems no rational mo- 
tive to exclude them from the senate. Abating the peculiar 
circumstances of a people, I can perceive no reason for ex- 
cluding them which would not hold in favour of excluding 
Christianity itself. To Christian legislators, Christianity is 
the primary rule ; who then would refuse admittance to those 
of whom it may be presumed that they best understand the 
Christian law ? But when we turn from the dictates of ab- 
stract reason and propriety to the state of a nation in which 
there is an established church — a church which assigns to 
one minister one specific spot for the exercise of its functions 
— we are presented with a very different scene. You cannot 
elect one of them (setting sinecures out of the question) with- 
out taking him away from his appointed charge, nor without 
leaving that charge to be as sheep without a shepherd. Never- 
theless, since there are, in fact, more clergymen than parishes, 
it does not appear obvious why they should be refused eligi- 
bility. I would not, as in the case of the bishops, make any 
number, or any order, of clergy legislators because they were 
clergy ; but neither would I, because they were clergy, refuse 



370 



BRITISH CONSTITUTION, [ESSAY III. 



to admit them. Perhaps, if the institution were remodelled, 
clergy might be allowed to be eligible — for their exclusion, it 
may be presumed, is the result originally rather of accident 
than design. They once had a convocation of their own, with 
considerable political power ; and when that convocation fell 
into disuse, no one perhaps thought of their reasonable claims 
for admissibility to the House of Commons. Let the writer 
be understood ; he is not proposing that Episcopal clergy, as 
such, should be admitted into our House of Commons, but he 
is saying, that Christian ministers should not, as such, be ex- 
cluded from the councils of a Christian nation. Penn was 
not the worse legislator because he was an active minister of 
the gospel. 

But, after all, it is disputed whether any alteration in the 
constitution of the House of Commons, or in the system of 
representation, would produce good effects — whether more 
virtue or more talent could be collected than is collected now. 
A question this, of which the negative has the advantage of 
experience, and the positive has not. We know that the 
present system has done good — the effect of another is in- 
volved in uncertainty. Now, let it be considered, first, that 
from the reign of Elizabeth, through several succeeding reigns 
down to the Revolution, the actual power of the House of 
Commons increased. Was not that increase productive, on the 
whole, and is it not at the present hour productive, of good 
effects ? Granting that it was — will any man affirm that one 
hundred and forty years have added nothing to the capability 
of the British public to judge soundly respecting political af- 
fairs ? If the capacity of sound judgment is increased, is it 
unreasonable — remembering the principles of political truth 
— that that judgment should possess a greater influence in the 
conduct of public affairs ? If that influence ought, in reason, 
to be increased, how shall the increase be so judiciously con- 
trived as by making the House of Commons a more accurate 
and immediate representative of the public mind ? 

As to the virtue, then, of the House of Commons, its pecu- 
liar and characteristic virtue consists in the accuracy of their 
representation ; and no man, I think, will deny that a greater 
practical representation is possible than that which now ob- 
tains. It is asked, " If such a number of such men be liable 
to the influence of corrupt motives, what assembly of men 
will be secure from the same danger ?"* But this is not the 
question : for even if six hundred and fifty-eight men could 
not be selected who would be more proof against corruption 
Paley : Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 6. c. 7. 



CHAP. VIII.] 



BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 



371 



when elected for seven years, yet the same men might 
be found more proof against it if they were elected only for 
two. A minister, then, instead of having to provide the in- 
ducements of influence for six hundred and fifty-eight men, 
would have to provide them for nearly two thousand. Either 
he must augment three or four fold the aggregate amount of 
his influence, or he must, in the same proportion, diminish its 
power upon individuals. To think of so increasing the amount 
is absurd. He must, therefore, curtail its individual streams. 
It would, then, be much less worth the while of a member to 
submit to corruption. The temptation would be diminished, 
and with the diminution of temptation there would be an in- 
crease of practical virtue. Nor is this all. It is, I believe, 
an undisputed fact, that those who represent the largest num- 
ber of electors are, in the aggregate, less subject to influence 
than those who represent a few. An altered mode of repre- 
sentation might increase the number of those whose constitu- 
ents were numerous, or make them numerous to all — and thus 
that scale of virtuous independence which is now found amongst 
a part of the representatives, might then be found in all. 

Then, as to the accumulation of talent. I think it question- 
able whether the brilliancy of the House of Commons would 
not be diminished by such an alteration as that of which we 
speak : partly because, in the language of Dr. Paley, " when 
boroughs are set to sale, those men are likely to become pur- 
chasers, who are enabled, by their talents, to make the best 
of their bargain." Granting all this, the answer is at hand — 
that splendour of abilities is much less necessary than integ- 
rity of virtue. If the question is between talent and rectitude 
— rectitude is our choice. Unusual talents, how much so- 
ever they may amuse and delight the house, and how accept- 
ably soever they may fill the columns of a newspaper, are 
greatly overrated in value — at least they are greatly overrated 
in reference to a sound state of political affairs. The tortuous 
and wily policy which obtains, needs, no doubt, much sagacity 
and adroitness to conduct it successfully and with a fair face. 
What is really wanted in a legislator is not brilliancy of talent, 
but a sound, and an enlightened, and an upright mind. Nor 
is it to be forgotten, that the splendid talents of those who 
" seek to make the best of their bargain," may be an evil 
rather than a good. The bargain, it is to be feared, will be a 
losing one to the public ; and by him who makes the best, the 
public may lose the most. After all, it needs not to be feared 
that six or seven hundred of such men as a House of Com- 
mons will always contain, will possess a sufficient aggregate 



372 



BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 



[ESSAY III. 



of ability for all the needful and all the virtuous business of 
the house. 

It has sometimes been enquired, What are the duties of a 
representative with respect to his constituents 1 — Generally, 
it is his duty to represent their opinions, and to act and vote 
upon his own. It has been well remarked, that a senator 
should consider himself not so much the representative of one 
portion of the community, as the legislator for all : and he 
can fulfil tins superior duty only by exercising his individual 
judgment. Nevertheless, a man with a nice sense of justice 
and honour, if it be found that the majority of his votes were 
at variance with the desires of his constituents, ought to re- 
flect that he is really no longer their representative, and to 
offer the resignation of their trust into their hands. 

It is curious, that whilst it is thus made a question whether 
a man should follow his own judgment in opposition to that 
of his constituents, no question seems to be entertained whether 
a man should follow his own judgment in opposition to his 
patron's. There the elector's opinion is to prevail : — else, 
the representative is not a man of honour ! — else, he does not 
fulfil the condition on which he was appointed ! — At the con- 
templation of such things common sense is confounded, and 
purity turns away her eyes.* 

Amongst the extraordinaiy doctrines which have arisen out 
of the impurity of political transactions, that of the " constitu- 
tional propriety of a systematic opposition" is one. To assert 
this, is to exhibit the political disease — as he who has got 
the gout manifests the disorder to his visiters by his swathed 
and cushioned leg. You cannot frame a more preposterous 
proposition than that good government ought to be systemati- 
cally opposed. If a government ought to- be opposed, it is 
only because it is not good. If, being good, it is systemati- 
cally opposed, there is viciousness in the opposition. In 
whatever way you defend an organized opposition, you assume 
the existence of evil. The motives in which the systematic 
opposition of some men is founded, correspond with the per- 
vading impurity. Although there is reason to be assured that 
of some the very frequent opposition to a ministry is the re- 
sult of political integrity, of others it cannot be doubted that 
the motives are kindred to those which are intimated in the 
humiliating note below. f 

* Some members who have owed their seats to patronage, have I be- 
lieve, had the virtue to stipulate for the freedom of their votes. Of this 
number it is said that the late Lord Chancellor Eldon was one. 

t Opposition " had received a mortal wound by the death of the late 



I 



CHAP. VIII.] BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 373 

[The invective, and the ridicule, and retort, and personality, 
which are frequently indulged within the walls of parliament, 
and from which much amusement appears to be derived to the 
members and to the public, imply, to be sure, a sufficient de- 
gree of forgetfulness of the purpose for which parliaments 
meet. A spectator might sometimes imagine that the object 
of the assembly was to witness exhibitions of intellectual glad- 
iators, rather than to debate respecting the welfare of a great 
nation. Nor can it be supposed that if this welfare were suf- 
ficiently, that is to say, constantly, dominant in the recollec- 
tion, there would be so much solicitude to expose individual 
weaknesses and absurdity, or to obtain personal triumph.] 

Much is said about " the exclusion of placemen and pen- 
sioners from parliament" — the propriety or impropriety of 
which is to be determined by the same rules as the question 
of political influence. If influence is necessary to the exist- 
ence of the present form of government, and if that influence 
is necessary in parliament, I see little ground to declaim 
against the admission of placemen. In a purer state of so- 
ciety they would, no doubt, be improper members, because 
then none ought to be members who have any inducement to 
sacrifice the interests of the public to their own. By the act 
of settlement, indeed, it was provided, " that no person who 
has an office or place of profit under the king, or receives 
a pension from the crown, shall be capable of serving as 
member of the House of Commons." The spirit of this pro- 
vision is practically superseded, though its letter so far oper- 
ates that a king's counsel who receives a few pounds a year 
as a salary from the crown, is incapable of possessing a seat. 
However, subsequently to the act of settlement, various at- 
tempts were made really to exclude the possessors of offices 
and pensions. Bill after bill actually passed the house, but 
the measure was rejected and again rejected by the Lords. — 
To pass such a bill in the present day, and to act upon it, would 
probably be tantamount to an overthrow of the constitution. 

It has sometimes been a subject of wonder to the writer, 
when reflecting upon the anxious solicitude of men for posthu- 
mous celebrity, that this single motive has not induced more 

Prince of Wales, some of whose adherents had prudently sung their 
palinodia to the ministry, and been gratified with profitable employ- 
ments ; while others, setting too great a price upon their own importance, 
kept aloof till the market was over, and were left to pine in secret over 
their disappointed ambition." — Smollett's England: v. 3, p. 391. 



374 



BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 



[ESSAY III. 



vigorous attempts on the part of a minister to regulate his 
measures by a stricter regard to the dictates of everlasting 
rectitude. I have wondered, because it is manifest from ex- 
perience that posterity will and does regard those dictates in 
its estimate of the honours of the dead. A very few years dis- 
miss much of the false colouring which temporary interests and 
politics throw over a minister's conduct. It is ere long found 
that he obtains the largest share of posthumous celebrity, who 
has most constantly adhered to virtue. I propose not the hope 
of this celebrity as a motive to the Christian : he has higher 
inducements ; but I propose it to the man of ambition. The 
simple love of fame would be, if he were rational with respect 
to his own interests, a sufficient inducement to prefer that 
conduct which will for ever recommend itself to the approba- 
tion of mankind. When we shall see the statesman who has, 
in private and in public, but one standard of rectitude, and 
that one the standard which is proposed in the gospel ; the 
statesman who is convinced, and acts upon the conviction, that 
every thing is wrong in the minister which would be wrong 
in the man ; — we shall see a statesman whom probably the 
clamour of to-day will call a fool or a traitor, but whom good 
men now, and all men hereafter, will regard as having at- 
tained almost to the pinnacle of virtue and honour — and whom 
God will receive with the sentence of Well done. 

In concluding these brief disquisitions upon the British 
government, I would be allowed to state the conviction, and 
to urge it upon those who complain of its defects in theory 
or in practice, that there is nothing in that theory or in that 
practice which warrants the attempt at amendment by any 
species of violence. I say this, even if I did not think, as I 
do, that violence is unlawful upon other grounds. There are 
no evils which make violence politically expedient. The right 
way of effecting amendments is by enlightening the national 
mind — by enabling the public to think justly and temperately 
of political affairs. If to this temperate and just judgment,, 
any part of the practice or of the form of our government 
should appear clearly and unquestionably adverse to the gen- 
eral good, it needs not to be feared that the corresponding al- 
teration will be made — made by that best of all political agents, 
the power of deliberate public opinion. " The will of the 
people when it is determined, permanent, and general, almost 
always at length prevails."* And if it should appear to the 
lover of his country, that the prevalence of this will is too long 
* Paley : Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 6, c. 7. 



CHAP. IX.] MORAL LEGISLATION. 375 

delayed, let him take comfort in the recollection that less is 
lost by the postponement of reformation, than would be lost in 
the struggle consequent upon intemperate measures. 



CHAPTER IX. 

MORAL LEGISLATION. 

Duties of a Ruler — The two objects of moral legislation — Education of 
the People — Bible Society — Lotteries — Public -houses — Abrogation of 
bad laws — Primogeniture — Accumulation of property. 

If a person who considered the general objects of the in- 
stitution of civil government, were to look over the titles 
of the acts of a legislature during fifteen or twenty years, he 
would probably be surprised to find the proportion so small of 
those of which it was the express object to benefit the moral 
character of the people. He would find many laws that re- 
spected foreign policy, many perhaps that referred to in- 
ternal political economy, many for the punishment of crime — 
but few that tended positively to promote the general hap- 
piness by increasing the general virtue. This, I say, may be 
a reasonable subject of surprise, when it is considered that 
the attainment of this happiness is the original and proper ob- 
ject of all government. There is a general want of adver- 
tence to this object, arising in part, perhaps, from the insuffi- 
cient degree of conviction that virtue is the best promoter of 
the general weal. 

To prevent an evil is always better than to repair it : 
for which reason, if it be in the power of the legislator to di- 
minish temptation or its influence, he will find that this is the 
most efficacious means of diminishing the offences and of in- 
creasing the happiness of a people. He who vigilantly de- 
tects and punishes vicious men, does well ; but he who pre- 
vents them from becoming vicious, does better. It is better, 
both for a sufferer, for a culprit, and for the community, that 
a man's purse should remain in his pocket, than that, when it 
is taken away, the thief should be sure of a prison. 

So far as is practicable, a government ought to be to a peo- 
ple, what a judicious parent is to a family — not merely the 
ruler, but the instructor and the guide. It is not perhaps so 



376 



MORAL LEGISLATION". 



[essay III. 



much in the power of a government to form the character of 
a people to virtue or to vice, as it is in the power of a parent 
to form that of his children. But much can be done if every 
thing cannot be : and indeed when we take into account the 
relative duration of the political body as compared with that 
of a family, we may have reason to doubt whether govern- 
ments cannot effect as much in ages as parents can do in 
years. Now, a judicious father adopts a system of moral cul- 
ture as well as of restraint : he does not merely lop the va- 
grant branches of his intellectual plant, but he trains and di- 
rects them in their proper course. The second object is to 
punish vice — the first to promote virtue. You may punish 
vice without securing virtue; but, if you secure virtue, the 
whole work is done. 

Yet this primary object of moral legislation is that to which 7 
comparatively, little attention is paid. Penalties are multi- 
plied upon the doers of evil, but little endeavour is used to 
prevent the commission of evil by inducing principles and 
habits which overpower the tendency to the commission. In 
this respect, we begin to legislate at the secondary part of our 
office rather than at the first. We are political surgeons, 
who cut out the tumours in the state, rather than the prescri- 
bes of that wholesome regimen by which the diseases in the 
political body are prevented. 

* But here arises a difficulty — How shall that political parent 
teach virtue which is not virtuous itself ? The governments 
of most nations, however they may inculcate virtue in their 
enactments, preach it very imperfectly by their example. — 
What then is to be done 1 " Make the tree good." The first 
step in moral legislation is to rectify the legislator. It holds 
of nations as of men, that the beam should be first removed 
out of our own eye. Laws, in their insulated character, will 
be but partially effectual, whilst the practical example of a 
government is bad. To this consideration sufficient atten- 
tion is not ordinarily paid. We do not adequately estimate 
the influence of a government's example upon the public 
character. Government is an object to which we look up as 
to our superior ; and the many interests which prompt men to 
assimilate themselves to the character of the government, ad- 
ded to the natural tendency of subordinate parts to copy the 
example of the superior, occasions the character of a govern- 
ment, independently of its particular measures, to be of im- 
mense influence upon the general virtue. Illustrations abound. 
If, in any instance, political subserviency is found to be a 
more efficient recommendation than integrity of character, it 




CHAP. IX.] 



MORAL LEGISLATION. 



377 



is easy to perceive that subserviency is practically inculcated, 
and that integrity is practically discouraged. 

Amongst that portion, then, of a legislator's office which 
consists in endeavouring the moral amelioration of a people, 
the amendment of political institutions is conspicuous. In 
proportion to the greatness of the influence of governments, is 
the obligation to direct that influence in favour of virtue. A 
government of which the principles and practice were accord- 
ant with rectitude, would very powerfully affect the general 
morals. He, therefore, who explodes one vicious principle, 
or who amends one corrupt practice, is to be regarded as 
amongst the most useful and honourable of public men. 

If, however, in any state there are difficulties, at present 
insurmountable, in the way of improving political institu- 
tions, still let us do what we can. Precept without example 
may do some good : nor are we to forget, that if the public 
virtue is increased by whatever means, it will react upon the 
governing power. A good people will not long tolerate a 
bad government. 

Amongst the most obvious means of rectifying the general 
morals by positive measures, one is the encouraging a ju- 
dicious education of the people. Upon this judiciousness al- 
most all its success depends. The great danger in underta- 
king a national system of education, is, that some peculiar 
notions will be instilled for political purposes, and that it will 
be converted into a source of patronage. In a Avord, the 
great danger is, that national education should become, like 
national churches, an ally of the state ; and if this is done, 
the system will inevitably become, if not corrupt, lamentably 
alloyed with corruption. It does not seem as if the people of 
this country would countenance any endeavour to institute an 
education like this, because an attempt has been made, and 
the public voice was lifted successfully against it. A gov- 
ernment, if it would rightly provide for the education of the 
community, must forget the peculiarities of creeds, political or 
religious. It must regard itself not as the head of a party, 
but as the parent of the people. 

We know that schools exist which impart an important 
and valuable education to the poor, and to which all men of 
all principles and all creeds are willing to subscribe. Here 
is effected much good with little or no evil. The great defect 
is in the limited extent of the good. The public cannot or do 
not give enough of their money to provide education for all. 
Is there, then, any sufficient reason why a government should 
not supply the deficiency; or why it should not undertake 

32* 



378 



MORAL LEGISLATION. 



[ESSAY III. 



the whole, and leave private bounty to flow in other channels ? 
The great difficulty is to provide for the purity of the em- 
ployment' of the funds : for this employment may be made an 
ally of the petty politics of a town, as the whole institution may 
be made an ally of the state. However, as the annual grants to 
almost all such institutions would be small, it might perhaps es- 
cape that universal bane. One thing would be indispensable — 
to provide that the authority by which appointments to master- 
ships, &c, are made, should be studiously constituted with a 
view to the exclusion of every motive but the single object of the 
institution. Whether it is possible to exclude improper motives 
may be doubted ; but it is perhaps as possible to exclude them 
from those as from the many institutions which the public money 
now supports. There is one way indeed in which education 
may be promoted with little danger of this petty corruption — 
by the purchase of land and erection of school-houses. This, 
together with the supply of books and the like, forms a prin- 
cipal item in the expense of these schools : and it might be 
hoped that, if the government did this, the public would do 
the remainder. 

But you say, All this will add to the national burdens. We 
need not be very jealous on this head, whilst we are so little 
jealous of more money worse spent. Is it known, or is it 
considered, that the expense of an ordinary campaign would 
endow a school in every parish in England and Ireland for 
ever? Yet how coolly (who will contradict me if I say — 
how needlessly ?) we devote money to conduct a campaign ! — 
Prevent, by a just and conciliating policy, one single war, and 
the money thus saved would provide, perpetually, a competent 
mental and moral education for every individual who needs it 
in the three kingdoms. Let a man for a moment indulge his 
imagination — let him rather indulge his reason, in supposing 
that one of our wars during the last century had been avoided, 
and that, fifty years ago, such an education had been provided. 
Of what comparative importance is the war to us now ? In 
the one case, the money has provided the historian with ma- 
terials to fill his pages with armaments, and victories, and de- 
feats : — it has enabled us 

To point a moral or adorn a tale ; 

— in the other, it would have effected, and would be now 
effecting, and would be destined for ages to effect, a great 
amount of solid good ; a great increase of the virtue, the order, 
and the happiness of the people. 

I suppose that the British and Foreign Bible Society, du- 



CHAP. IX.] 



MORAL LEGISLATION. 



379 



ring the twenty or thirty years that it has existed, has done 
more direct good in the world — has had a greater effect 
in meliorating the condition of the human species — than all 
the measures which have been directed to the same ends, of 
all the prime ministers in Europe during a century. But 
suppose much less than this, suppose it has done more good 
than the moral measures of any one court, and will not this 
single and simple fact prove that much more is in the power 
of the legislator than he is accustomed to think ; and prove 
too, that there is an unhappy want of advertence amongst the 
conductors of governments to some of the most interesting 
and important duties of their office ? With what means has 
this amount of moral good in all quarters of the earth been 
effected ? Why, with a revenue that never amounted to a 
hundred thousand pounds in any one year ! A sum which, if 
we compare it with sums that are expended for measures of 
very questionable utility, is really trifling. Supposing that 
the legislature of this country had given an annual fifty thou- 
sand pounds to this institution, no man surely will dispute 
that the sums would have done incalculably more good in our 
own country — to say nothing of the world — than fifty thou- 
sand pounds of public money ordinarily effects. In passing, 
it may be observed too, that such an appropriation of money 
by a government, would probably do much in propitiating the 
friendliness and good offices of other nations. 

" No consideration of emolument can be put in competition 
with the morals of a nation ; and no minister can be justified, 
either on civil or religious grounds, in rendering the latter 
subservient to the former." * Such a truth should be brought 
into practical operation. If it had been, lotteries in England 
had not been so long endured — if it were, the prodigious mul- 
titudes of public-houses would not be endured now. That 
these haunts and schools of vice are pernicious, no one 
doubts. Why is an excess of them permitted % — They in- 
crease the revenue. " Emolument is put in competition with 
morals," and it prevails. Even on grounds of political econ- 
omy, however, the evil is great — for they materially diminish 
the effective labour of the population. If to this we add the 
multitudes whom the idleness of drunkards throws upon the 
parishes, perhaps as much is really lost in wealth by this 
penny-wise policy, as is lost in virtue. Besides, all needless 
alehouse-keepers are dead-weights upon the national industry. 
They contribute as little to the wealth of the state as he who 
lives upon the funds. 

* Gifford : Life of Pitt. 



380 



MORAL LEGISLATION. 



[ESSAY III 



" It would be no injustice," says Playfair, " if publicans 
were prevented from legal recover}* for beer or spirits con- 
sumed in their houses ; in the same manner that payment 
cannot be enforced of any person under twenty-one years of 
age, except for necessaries."* This, however, were to at- 
tempt to cure one evil by another. It were a practical 
encouragement of continual fraud. The short and simple 
way is to refuse licenses, and to take care that those who 
have the power of licensing shall exercise it justly. 

This sound proposition, that neither on " civil nor reli- 
gious grounds" is it right to consult policy at the expense 
of morals, is, as we have seen, at the basis of political truth. 
Here, then, let Political Truth be applied. It will be found, 
by the far-seeing legislator, to be expedient as well as right. 

Bishop Warburton says, " Though a multiplication of good 
laws does nothing against a general corruption of manners, 
yet the abrogation of bad ones greatly promotes reformation."! 
The truth of the first clause is very disputable : the last 
is unquestionably true. This abrogation of bad laws, forms 
a very important part of moral legislation ; and unhappily, it 
is a part which there are peculiar ditficulties in effecting. 
There are few bad laws of which there are not some persons 
who are interested in the continuance. The interests of 
these persons, the supineness of others, the pride of a third 
class, and the superstitious attachment of a fourth to ancient 
things, occasion many laws to remain on the statute books of 
nations, long after their perniciousness has been ascertained. 

Thus it has happened in our own country with respect to 
the game laws. It is perfectly certain that they greatly in- 
crease the vices of the people, and yet they remain unre- 
pealed. Why ? Yoluble answers can no doubt be given, but 
they will generally be resolvable into vanity or selfishness. 
The legislator who shall thoroughly amend the game laws, 
(perhaps thorough amendment will not be far from abolition,) will 
be a greater benefactor to his country than multitudes who 
are rewarded with offices and coronets. 

Thus, too, it has happened with the system of primogeni- 
ture. The two great effects of this system are, first, to in- 
crease the inequality of property, and next to perpetuate the 
artificial distinctions of rank. 

That the existing inequality of property is a great political 
and moral evil, it was attempted in the third chapter of the 

* Causes of Decline of Nations, 4to, p. 226. t Letters to 

Bishop Hurd No. 32 



CHAP. IX.] 



MORAL LEGISLATION. 



381 



preceding essay to show. The means of diminishing this in- 
equality, which in that chapter were urged as an obligation of 
private life, are not likely to be fully effectual so long as the 
law encourages its continuance. A man who possesses an 
estate in land dies without a will. He has two sons. Why 
should the law declare that one of these should be. rich and 
the other poor ? Is it reasonable ? Is it just ? As to its 
reasonableness, I discover no conceivable reason, why, be- 
cause one brother is born a twelvemonth before another, he 
should possess ten times as much property as the younger. 
Affection dictates equality ; and in such cases the dictate of 
affection is commonly the dictate of reason. We have seen, 
what antecedently to enquiry we might expect, that the prac- 
tical effects are bad. Civil laws ought, as moral guides of 
the community, to discourage great inequality of property. 
How then shall we sufficiently deplore a system which ex- 
pressly encourages and increases it ? Some time ago, (and 
probably at the present day,) the laws of Virginia did not 
permit one son to inherit the landed estates of his father to 
the exclusion of his brothers. The effect was beneficial, for 
it actually diminished the disparity of property.* We, how- 
ever, not only do not forbid the descent of estates to one son, 
but we actually ordain it. It were sufficient, surely, to allow 
private vanity to have its own will in " keeping up a family" 
at the expense of sense and virtue, without encouraging it to 
do this by legal enactments when it might otherwise be more 
wise. The descent of intestates' estates in land to the elder 
son has the effect of an example, and of inducing vicious no- 
tions upon those who make their wills. That which is ha- 
bitual to the mind as a provision of the law, acquires a sort 
of sanction and fictitious propriety, by which it is recom- 
mended to the public. 

The partial distribution of intestates' estates is, however, 
only of casual operation. Of the laws which make certain 
estates inalienable, or, which is not very different, allow the 
present possessor to entail them, the effect is constant and 
habitual. To prevent a reasonable and good man from making 
that division of his property which reason and goodness pre- 
scribe, is a measure which, if it be adopted, ought surely to 
be recommended by very powerful considerations. And what 
are they — except that they enable or oblige a man to keep up 

* The Virginians singularly confounded good moral legislation with 
bad, for they made a law declaring all landed property inviolable. The 
consequence was what might have been expected : many got into debt 
and remained quietly on their estates, laughing at their creditors. 



382 



MORAL LEGISLATION. 



[ESSAY III. 



the splendour of his family ? Splendour of family ! Oh ! to 
what an ignis fatuus, to what a pitiable scheme of vanity, are 
affection, and reason, and virtue, obliged to bow ! Where is 
the man who will stand forward and affirm that this splendour 
is dictated by a regard to the proper dignity of our nature ? 
Where is he who will affirm that it is dictated by sound prin- 
ciples of virtue ? — Where, especially, is he who will affirm 
that it is dictated by religion ? It has nothing to do with re- 
ligion, nor virtue, nor human dignity : religion despises it as 
idly vain ; morality reprobates it as sacrificing sense and af- 
fection to vanity ; dignity rejects it as a fictitious and unwor- 
thy substitute for itself. Yet, perhaps, this humiliating motive 
of vanity is the most powerful of those which induce attach- 
ment to the system of primogeniture, or which would occasion 
opposition to attempts at reform. Perhaps it will be said, 
that to make the real estate of a man inalienable is really a 
kindness to his successors, by preventing him from squander- 
ing it away — -to which the answer is, that there is no more 
reason for preventing the extravagance of those who possess 
much property than those who possess little. No legislature 
thinks of enacting that a man who has two thousand pounds 
in the funds shall not sell it and spend it if he thinks fit. In 
general, men take care of their property without compulsion 
from the law ; and if it is affirmed that the heads of great 
families are more addicted to this profusion and extravagance 
than other men, it will only additionally show the mischiefs 
of excessive possessions. Why should they be more addict- 
ed to it unless the temptations of greatness are unusually 
powerful, and unusually prevail ? 

But it will be said, that the system is almost necessary to 
an order of nobility. I am sorry for it. If, as is probably at 
present the case, that order is expedient in the political con- 
stitution, and if its weight in the constitution must be kept up 
by the system of primogeniture, I do not affirm that, with re- 
spect to the peerage, this system should be at present abol- 
ished. But then let the enlightened man consider whither 
these considerations lead him. If a system essentially irra- 
tional and injurious, is indispensable to a certain order of 
mankind, what is it but to show, that, in the constitution of 
that order itself, there is something inherently wrong 1 Some- 
thing that, if the excellence of mankind were greater, it would 
be found desirable to amend ? Nor here, in accordance with 
that fearless pursuit of truth, whether welcome or unwelcome, 
which I propose to myself in these pages, can I refrain from 
the remark, that in surveying from different points the con- 



CHAP. IX.] 



MORAL LEGISLATION. 



383 



stituent principles of an order of peers, we are led to one 
and the same conclusion — that there is in these principles 
something really and inherently wrong ; something which 
adapts the order to an imperfect, and only to an imperfect, 
state of mankind. 

If then we grant the propriety of an exception in the case 
of the peerage, we do not grant it with respect to other men. 
Much may be done to diminish the inequality of property, 
and with it to diminish the vices of a people, by abolishing 
the system of primogeniture except in the case of peers. . 

Of so great ill consequence is excessive wealth, and the 
effect to which it tends, excessive poverty, that a government 
might perhaps rightly discountenance the accumulation of ex- 
treme personal property. Probably there is no means of doing 
this, without an improper encroachment upon liberty, except 
by some regulations respecting wills. I perceive nothing 
either unreasonable or unjust in refusing a probate for an 
amount exceeding a certain sum. Supposing the law would 
allow no man to bequeath more than a given sum, what would 
be the ill effect 1 That it would discourage enterprising in- 
dustry ? That industry is of little use which extends its de- 
sires of accumulation to an amount that has no limit. The 
man of talent and application, after he had so far benefited 
himself and his country by his exertions or inventions, as to 
acquire such property as would procure for him all the ac- 
commodations of life which he could rationally enjoy, may 
retire from the accumulation of more, and leave the result of 
his talents to bring comfort and competence to other men. It 
may be said, that a man might still accumulate a larger sum 
to dispose of before his death : — So he might ; but few would 
do it. Of those who are ambitious of so much more than 
conduces to the welfare of themselves and their children, few 
would continue to toil in order to give it away. Benevolence 
does not generally form a part of the motives to such accu- 
mulation. If once the law refused the bequest of more than 
a fixed sum, by appropriating the excess to the exigencies of 
the state, or to measures of public utility, men would learn to 
set limits to their desires. That restless pursuit of wealth 
which is pernicious to the pursuer and to other men, would 
be powerfully checked ; and he who had acquired enough, 
might habitually give place to the many who had too little. 
The writer of these pages makes no pretensions to a know- 
ledge of the minute details of moral legislation. It is his 
business, in a case like this, whilst enforcing the end only to 
suggest the means Other and better means of diminishing 



384 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. [ESSAY III. 



the inequality of property than those which have just been 
alluded to, may probably be discovered by practical men. 
But of the end itself it becomes the writer of morality to 
speak with earnestness and with confidence.* It admits of 
neither dispute nor doubt, that in our own country, and in 
many others, there subsist extremes of wealth and poverty 
which are highly injurious to private virtue and to the public 
good ; and therefore it admits neither of dispute nor doubt, 
that the endeavour to diminish these extremes, is an impor- 
tant, (unhappy — that it is also a neglected !) branch of moral 
legislation. 



CHAPTER X. 

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 

Substitution of justice for law — Court of Chancery — Of fixed laws — 
Their inadequacy — They increase litigation — Delays — Expenses — In- 
formalities — Precedents — Verdicts — Legal proof — Courts of Arbitration 
— An extended system of arbitration — Arbitration in criminal trials — 
Constitution of courts of arbitration — Their effects — Some alterations 
suggeste d — Technic alities — Useless laws. 

In considering this great subject the enquirer after truth is 
presented, as upon some kindred subjects, with one great per- 
vading difficulty. If he applies the conclusions of abstract 
truth, such is the imperfect condition of mankind, that it loses 
a portion of its practical adaptation to its object. If he de- 
viates from this truth, where shall he seek for a director of 
his judgment ? He is left to roam amongst endless specula- 
tions, where nothing is to be found with the impress of cer- 
tain rectitude. 

The dictate of simple truth respecting the Administration 
of Justice is, that if two men differ upon a question of prop- 
erty or of right, that decision should be made between them 

* The legal division of the personal property of intestates admits of 
easy amendment. Two men die, of whom each leaves six thousand 
pounds behind him. One has a wife and one child, and the other a wife 
and eight children. It can hardly be rational to give to the widow in 
both these cases the same share of the property. In one or two nations 
the law gives a third of the income of the real estates, in addition, to the 
widow ; but better regulations even than this were easily devised. 



CHAP. X.] 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 



385 



which Justice, in that specific case, requires ; that if a person 
has committed a public offence, that punishment should be 
awarded which his actual deserts and the proper objects of 
punishment demand. 

But if this truth is applied in the present state of society, 
it is found so difficult to obtain judges who will apply the 
sound principles of equity, judges who will exercise absolute 
discretionary power without improper biasses, that the en- 
quirer is fearful to pronounce a judgment respecting the rule 
which should regulate the administration of justice. 

Men, seeing the difficulties to which an attempt to admin- 
ister simple equity is exposed, have advanced as a fundamen- 
tal maxim — that the law shall be made by one set of men and 
its execution entrusted to another — thus endeavouring, on the 
one hand, to prevent rules from being made under the bias re- 
sulting from the contemplation of particular cases, and on the 
other, to preclude the appliers of the rules from the influence 
of the same bias, by obliging them to decide according to a 
preconcerted law. 

But, when we have gone thus far — when we have allowed 
that questions between man and man shall be decided by a 
rule that is independent of the merits of the present case, we 
have departed far from the pure dictate of rectitude. We 
have made the standard to consist not of justice but of law ; 
and having done this, we have opened wide the door to the 
entrance of injustice. And it does enter indeed ! 

The consideration of this state of things indicates one sat- 
isfactory truth — that we should pursue the rule of abstract 
rectitude to the utmost of our power ; that we should con- 
stantly keep in view, that whatever decision is made upon any 
other ground than that of simple justice, it is so far defeating 
the object for which Courts of Justice are established : and 
therefore, that in whatever degree it is practicable to rind men 
w r ho will decide every specific question according to the dic- 
tates of justice upon that question, in the same degree it is 
right to supersede the application of inferior principles. 

Am I then sacrificing the fundamental principles upon 
which the morality of these Essays is founded? Am I, at 
last, conceding that expediency ought to take precedence of 
rectitude 1 No : but I am saying, that if the state of human 
virtue is such that not one can be found to judge justly be- 
tween his brethren — men must judge as justly as they can, 
and a legislator must contrive such boundaries and checks for 
those who have to administer justice, as shall make the im- 
perfection of human virtue as little pernicious as he may. If 

33 



386 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. [ESSAY HI. 



this virtue were perfect, courts of law might perhaps safely 
and rightly be shut up. There would be a rule of judgment 
preferable to law ; and law itself, so far as it consists of ab- 
solute rules for the direction of decisions between man and 
man, might almost be done away. 

Now, in considering the degree in which this great desid- 
eratum — the substitution of justice for law — can be effected, 
let us be especially careful that we throw no other impedi- 
ments in the way of justice than those which are interposed 
by the want of purity in mankind. Let us never regard a 
system of administering justice as fixed, so that its maxims 
shall not be altered whenever an increase of purity dictates 
that an alteration may be made. All the existing national 
systems of administering justice are imperfect and alloyed ; 
> — a mixture of evil and good. It were sorrowful indeed to 
assume that they cannot be, or to provide that they shall not 
be, amended. 

The system in this country, like most systems which are 
the gradual accretion of the lapse of ages, is incongruous in 
its different parts. In the decisions that are founded upon 
legal technicalities, the method of applying absolute uniform 
law is adopted. In the assessment of damages there is exer- 
cised very great discretionary power. In pronouncing ver- 
dicts upon prisoners, juries are scarcely allowed any discretion 
at all. They say absolutely either not guilty or guilty. — 
Then again, discretion is entrusted to the judge, and he may 
pronounce sentences of imprisonment or of transportation, 
varying according to his judgment in their duration or circum- 
stances. The reader should well observe this admission of 
discretionary power to the judicial court, because it is a prac- 
tical acknowledgment that considerations of equity are in- 
dispensable to the administration of justice, whatever may be 
the multiplicity or precision of the laws. Our judges are en- 
trusted, on the circuits, with the discretionary power of com- 
muting capital punishments or leaving the offender for execu- 
tion. This is equivalent to an acknowledgment, that even 
the most tremendous sanctions of the state are more safely 
applied upon principles of equity than upon principles of Law. 
Let the reader bear this in his mind. 

Of the general tendency and attendant evils of uniform law, 
some illustrations have been offered in the preceding Essay, 
and some observations have been offered in the chapter on 
Arbitration, on the advantages of administering justice upon 
principles of equity, that is, by a large discretionary power. 
Now it will be our business to enquire into some of the rea- 



CHAP. X.] ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 



387 



soilings by which the application of uniform law is recom- 
mended— -to illustrate yet further the moral claims of Courts 
of Equity, and to show if we can that some greater approxi- 
mation to the adoption of these courts is practicable even in 
the present condition of mankind. 

The administration of justice, according to a previously 
made rule, labours under this fundamental objection, that it as- 
sumes a knowledge in the maker of the rule which he does 
not possess, it assumes that he can tell beforehand, not only 
what is a good decision in a certain class of questions, but 
what is the best ; and the objection appears so much the more 
palpable, because it assumes, that a party who judges a case 
before it exists, can better tell what is justly due to an offended, 
or an offending person, than those who hear all the particu- 
lars of the individual case. This objection, which it is evi- 
dent can never be got over, is practically felt and acknow- 
ledged. Every relaxation of a strict adherence to the law, 
every concession of discretionay power to juries or to courts, 
is an acknowledgment of the inherent inadequacy and im- 
propriety of fixed rules. You perceive that no fixed rules 
can define and discriminate justly for specific cases. Multi- 
ply them as you may, the gradations in the demands for equi- 
table decision will multiply yet faster ; so that you are forced 
at last to concede something to equity, though perhaps there 
has not hitherto been conceded enough. Our Court of 
Chancery was originally, and still is called a Court of Equity, 
the erection of which court is paying a sort of tacit homage 
to equity as superior to law, and making a sort of tacit ac- 
knowledgment how imperfect and inefficient the fundamental 
principles of fixed law are. It is perhaps a subject of regret 
that this court is now a court of equity rather in name than in 
fact. It proceeds, in a great degree, according to the rule 
of precedent ; one of the principal differences between its 
practical character and that of legal courts being, that in one 
a jury decides questions, and in the other a judge. 

And after all, the fixedness of the law is much less in prac- 
tice than in theory, We all know how various and contra- 
dictory are the " opinions " of legal men, so that a person 
may present his. " case " to three or four able lawyers in suc- 
cession, and receive from each a different answer. Nay, if 
several should agree when they are applied to as judges in 
the case, it is found, when a person comes into court, that 
counsel can find legal arguments, and unanswerable argu- 
ments too, on both sides of the question, till at last the ques- 
tion is decided, not by a fixed law, but by a preponderance of 



388 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. [ESSAY III. 



weight of conflicting precedents. Indeed the unfixedness of 
the law is practically so great, that common fame has made it 
a proverb. 

Another inconvenience which is inseparable from the use 
of fixed rules is, that they almost preclude a court from at- 
tending sufficiently to one very important point in the admin- 
istration of justice, the intention of offending parties. Law 
says, if a man steals another person's watch under such and 
such circumstances, he shall receive such and such a punish- 
ment. Yet the guilt of two men who steal watches under the 
same visible circumstances, is often totally disproportionate ; 
and this disproportion indicates the propriety of corresponding 
gradations of penalty. Yet fixed law awards the same pen- 
alty to both. If it is said that a court may take intention and 
motives into the account in its sentence, so it may ; but in 
whatever degree it does this, in the same degree it acknow- 
ledges the incompetency and inaptitude of fixed laws. 

" The motives and intentions of the parties." When we 
consider that the personal guilt of a man depends more upon 
these than upon his simple acts, and consequently that these 
rather than his acts indicate his deserts, it appears desirable 
that human tribunals should measure their punishments as 
much by a reference to actual deserts as is consistent with 
the public good. I would not undertake to affirm that the 
guilt of the offender is to us the ultimate standard of just pun- 
ishment, because it may be necessary to the prevention of 
crimes, that of two offences equal in guilt, one should be pun- 
ished more severly than another, on account of the greater 
facilities for its commission — that is, on account of the greater 
impracticability of guarding against the offence, or of detect- 
ing the offender after it is committed. But, in speaking of 
the propriety of adverting to intention, this is not the point in 
view. I speak not of the difference between two classes of 
crimes, but of the actual motives, inducements and tempta- 
tions of the individual offender. Stealing five pounds worth 
of property in sheep, although it may be no more vicious, as 
an act, than stealing a five-pound note from the person, may 
perhaps be rightly visited with a severer punishment. This 
is one thing. But two men may each steal a sheep with 
very different degrees of personal guilt. This is another. 
And this is the point of which we speak. A man who is 
able to maintain himself in respectability, but will not apply 
himself to an honest occupation — who lives by artifices, or 
frauds, or thefts, or gambling, or contracting debts, watches 
night after night an opportunity to carry off sheep from an in- 



CHAP. X.] 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 



389 



closure. He succeeds, and spends the value in drunkenness, 
or at a bagnio. A man of decent character who in a period 
of distress, endeavours in vain to procure employment or 
bread — who pawns, day after day, his furniture, his clothing, 
his bed, to obtain food for his children and his wife — who 
finds at last that all is gone, and that hunger continues its de- 
mands — passes a sheep field. The thought of robbing starts 
suddenly before him, and he as suddenly executes it. He 
earries home the meat, and is found by the police hastily cut- 
ting slices for his voracious family. Ought these two men to 
receive the same punishment? It is impossible. Justice, 
common sense, Christianity forbid it. We cannot urge, in 
such cases, that human tribunals, being unable to penetrate 
the secret motives of action, must leave it to the Supreme Be- 
ing to apportion punishment strictly to guilt. We can dis- 
cover, though not the exact amount of guilt, a great deal of 
difference between its degrees. We do actually know, that 
of two persons who commit the same crime, one is often 
much more criminal than another ; and were it not that our 
jurisprudence habituates us so much to refer simply to acts, 
we might know much more than we do. We are often igno- 



rant of motives only because we do not enquire for them. A 
law says, " If any person shall enter a field and steal a sheep 
or horse, he shall suffer death ;" and so, when a court comes 
to try a man charged with the act, they perhaps scarcely think 
of any other consideration than whether he stole the animal 
or not. Of ten who do thus steal, no two probably deserve 
exactly the same punishment, and some, undoubtedly deserve 
much less than others. 

Discrimination, then, is necessary to the demands alike of 
humanity, and reason, and religion. But how shall sufficient 
discrimination be exercised under a system of fixed laws ? 
If the decisions of courts must be regulated by the acts of the 
offender, how shall they take into account those endless gra- 
dations of personal desert, to refer to which is a sine qua non 
of the administration of justice ? Now, in order to satisfy 
these demands, courts must by some means be entrusted with 
a greater discretionary power ; or, which is the same thing, 
decisions upon maxims of equity must, in a greater degree, 
take the place of decisions regulated by law. 

The next great objection is, that to place, for example, 
men's property at the discretion of a court of equity that was 
not bound down by fixed rules, would make the possession of 
every man's property uncertain. Nobody would know whether 
the estate which he and his fathers enjoyed, might not to- 




33* 



390 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. [ESSAY III. 



morrow, by the same court of equity, be taken away. But 
this supposes that the decisions of these courts would be ar- 
bitrary and capricious ; whereas, the supposition upon which 
we set out — the supposition upon which alone we reason, is, 
that means can be devised by which their decisions shall be 
generally at least accordant with rectitude. They must de- 
viate very widely from rectitude if they took away a man's 
estate without some reason which appeared to them to be good ; 
and it could hardly appear to be good, on a full hearing of the 
case, unless the merits of that case were very questionable ; 
but in proportion to that questionableness would be the small- 
ness of the grievance if the estate were taken away. " Let 
any man suppose a case for himself — he possesses a house, 
to which no one ever disputed his title till some person 
chooses to bring his title before a court of equity — of the mem- 
bers of which court the possessor nominates one half ; does any 
man in his senses suppose that the property would be endan- 
gered ? or rather, does any man suppose that a person would 
be foolish enough to call the title in question 1 But we must 
repeat the other alternative. If a person holds an estate by a 
decision of law which he would not have held by a decision 
of rectitude, we do not listen to his complaints though it be 
taken away. It is just what we desire. 

It has been contended, that to depart further from the sys- 
tem of deciding by law, would tend to the increase of litiga- 
tion; that nothing prevents litigation so much as previous 
certainty of the rule of decision ; and that if, instead of this 
certainty, the decision of a court were left to a species of 
chance, there would be litigation without end. But in this 
argument it is not sufficiently considered that previous cer- 
tainty of the rule of decision is very imperfectly possessed— 
that, as we have just been observing, the law is not fixed ; 
and, consequently, that that discouragement of litigation which 
would arise out of previously known rules, very imperfectly 
operates. Nor, again, is it enough considered, that the de- 
cision of a court of equity, if properly constituted, would not 
be a matter of chance, nor any thing that is like it. Though a 
legal rule would not bind a court, still it would be bound — bound 
by the dictates — commonly the very intelligible dictates — of 
right and wrong. " Reason," it has been said, " is a thousand 
times more explicit and intelligible than law ;" and if reason 
were not more intelligible, still the moral judgments in the mind 
assuredly are. Again, many causes are now brought into 
court, not because they are morally good, but legally good. 
Of this the contending parties are often conscious, and they 



CHAP. X.] 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 



391 



would therefore be conscious that a court which regulated its 
decisions by the moral qualities of a case, would decide 
against them. At present, when a man contemplates a law- 
suit, he has to judge as well as he can of the probability of 
success, by enquiring into the rules of law and decisions of 
former cases. If a court of equity were to be the judge, he 
would have to appeal to a much nearer and more determinate 
ground of probability — to his own consciousness of the justness 
of his cause. We are therefore to set the discouragement of 
litigation, which arises from this source, against that which 
arises from the supposed fixedness of the law ; and I am dis- 
posed to conclude that in a well constituted court this dis- 
couragement would be practically the greater. Another point 
is this : — It is unhappily certain, that either the ignorance or 
the cupidity of some legal men prompts many to engage in law- 
suits who have little even of legal reason to hope for success. 
This cause of litfgation equity would do away; a lawyer would 
not be applied to, for a lawyer would have no better means 
of foreseeing the probable decision of a court of equity than 
another man. 

Here, too, it is to be remembered that the great, what if I 
say the crying evils of the present state of legal practice, re- 
sult from — the employment of fixed laws. It has indeed 
been acknowledged by an advocate of these laws, that they 
" erect the practice of the law into a separate profession."* 
Now, suppose all the evils, all the expenses, all the disposi- 
tion to litigation and dispute, all the practical injustice, which 
results from this profession were done away — would not the 
benefit be very great 1 Would it not be a great advantage to 
the quiet, and the pockets, and the virtue of the nation ? I 
regard this one circumstance as forming a recommendation of 
equity so powerful, that serious counterbalancing evils must 
be urged to overcome its weight. Even to the political econ- 
omist the dissolution or great diminution of the profession is 
of some importance. I am no proficient in his science : but 
it requires little proficiency to discover, that the existence of 
a large number of persons who not only contribute little to the 
national prosperity, but often deduct from it, is no trifling evil 
in a state. But it is not simply as it respects the profession 
that fixed laws are thus injurious. They are the great ulti- 
mate occasion of those obstacles to the attainment of justice 
which are felt to be a grievance in almost all civilized nations. 
The delays and the expenses, and the undefined annoyances 
of vexation and disappointment, deter many from seeking 
* Paley: Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 6, c. 8. 



392 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. [ ESSAY III. 



their just rights. Delays are occasioned in a great degree by 
forms ; and forms are a part of the system of fixed laws. Ex- 
penses are entailed by the necessity of complying with these 
forms, and of employing those persons whose knowledge is 
requisite to tell us what those forms are ; and the acquisition 
of this knowledge requires so much time and care, that he 
who imparts it must be well paid. As to indeterminate vex- 
ations and disappointments, they too result principally from 
the fixedness of rules. A man with a cause of unquestioned 
rectitude is too often denied justice on account of the inter- 
vention of some absolute rule — that has little or no relevance 
to the question of rectitude. Persons, fearing these various 
evils, decline to endeavour the attainment of their just rights, 
rights which, if equity were in a greater degree substituted 
for law, would be of comparatively easy attainment. 

The reader can hardly too vigorously impress upon his 
mind the consideration, that the various sacrifices of rectitude 
which are made under colour of the legality of people's claims, 
result from the system of fixed laws. If to avail one's-self 
of an informality in a will to defraud the claims of justice 
be wrong — the evil and the temptation is to be laid at the 
door of fixed law. If an undoubted criminal escapes jus- 
tice merely because he cannot legally be convicted, the evil 
— which is serious — is to be laid at the door of fixed law. 
And so of a hundred other cases — cases of which the aggre- 
gate ill consequence is so great, as to form a weighty objec- 
tion to whatever system may occasion them. 

I make little distinction between deciding by fixed law and 
by precedents, because the principles of both are the same, 
and both, it is probable, will stand or fall together. Prece- 
dents are laws — but of somewhat less absolute authority ; 
which indeed they ought to be, since they are made by courts 
of justice and not by the legislature. They are a sort of sup- 
plemental statutes, which attempt to supply (what however 
can never be supplied) the deficiencies of fixed laws. A stat- 
ute is a general rule ; a precedent prescribes a case in which 
that rule shall be observed ; but a thousand cases still arise 
which neither statute nor precedent can reach. 

So habitual is become our practice of judging questions 
rather by a previously made rule than by their proper merits, 
that even the House of Lords, which is the highest court of 
equity in the state, searches out, when a question is brought 
before it, its precedents ! Long debates ensue upon the paral- 
lelism of decisions a century or two ago ; when, if the merits 
of the case only were regarded, perhaps not an hour would 



CHAP. X.] 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 



393 



be spent in the decision. Then the House is cramped and 
made jealous lest its present vote should be a precedent for 
another decision fifty years to come. New debates are started 
as to the bearing of the precedent upon some imagined ques- 
tion in after times ; and at last the decision is regulated per- 
haps as much by fears of distant consequences, as by a regard 
to present rectitude. Do away precedents, and the House 
might pursue unshackled the dictate of Virtue. And after 
all, when precedents are sought and found, the House usually 
acts upon the opinion of its legal members — thus subverting 
the very nature of a court of equity. It would seem the ra- 
tional and consistent course, that in the House of Lords, when 
it constitutes such a court, the law lords should be almost the 
last to give a sentiment ; for if it be to be decided by lawyers, 
to what purpose is it brought to the House of Peers 1 

And another inconvenience of fixed law — or at any rate of 
fixed laws such as ours are — is, that in cases of criminal trials 
the jury are bound down, as we have before noticed, to an ab- 
solute verdict either to acquit the prisoner of ail crime and 
exempt him from all punishment, or to declare that he is guilty 
and leave him to the sentence of the court. Now since many 
verdicts are founded upon a balance of probabilities — probabil- 
ities which leave the juror's mind uncertain of the prisoner's 
guilt, it would seem the dictate of reason that corresponding 
verdicts should be given. If it is quite certain that a man has 
stolen a watch, it seems reasonable that he should receive a 
greater punishment than he of whom it is only highly probable 
that he has stolen it. But the verdict in each case is the 
same — till, as the probability diminishes, the minds of the jury 
at last preponderate on the other side, and they pronounce an 
absolute verdict of acquittal. From this state of things it hap- 
pens that some are punished more severely than the amount 
of probability warrants, and that many are not punished at all, 
because there is no alternative to the jury between the abso- 
lute acquittal and absolute conviction. Now the imperfection 
of human judgment, the impossibility of penetrating always 
into the real facts and motives of men, indicates that some 
penalties may justly be awarded, even though a court enter- 
tains doubts of a prisoners guilt. Man must doubt because 
he cannot k?iou\ We may rightly therefore proceed upon 
probabilities and punish upon probabilities ; so that we should 
not wholly exempt a man from punishment because we are 
not sure that he is guilt}', nor inflict a certain stipulated amount 
of it because we are only strongly persuaded that he is. Pun- 
ishment may rightly then be regulated by probabilities : but 



394 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 



how shall this be done without a large discretionary power 
in those who judge ? And how shall such discretionary power 
be exercised whilst we act upon the maxims of fixed law 1 

The requisition of what is called legal proof is one result 
of fixed law that is attended with much evil. It not unfre- 
quently happens, that a man who claims a right adduces such 
evidence of its validity that the court — that every man — is 
convinced he ought to possess it : but there is some deficiency 
in that precise kind of proof which the law prescribes ; and 
so, in deference to law, justice is turned away. It is the 
same with crimes. Crimes are sometimes proved to the satis- 
faction of every one who hears the evidence ; and because 
there is some want of strict legal proof, the criminal is again 
turned loose upon society. Such things, decisions founded 
upon equity would do away. All that the court would require 
would be a satisfactory conviction of the prisoner's guilt or of 
the claimant's rights ; and having obtained that satisfaction, it 
would decide accordingly. 

Here, too, a consideration is suggested respecting the pre- 
rogative which is vested in the crown of pardoning offenders. 
The crown, if any, is doubtless the right repository of this 
prerogative ; but it is not obvious, upon principles of equity, 
that any repository is right. If an offender deserves punish- 
ment, he ought to receive it — and if he does not deserve it, 
no sentence ought to be passed upon him. This, of which 
the truth is very obvious, simply considered, is only untrue 
when you introduce fixed laws. These fixed laws require 
you to deliver a verdict, and, when it is delivered, to pass a 
sentence ; — and then, finding your sentence is improper or un- 
just, you are obliged to go to a court of equity to remedy the 
evil. Why should we pass a sentence if it is not deserved ? 
Why is a sentence the indispensable consequence of a ver- 
dict 1 Why rather is a formal verdict pronounced at all ? 
There appears in the view of equity no need for all these 
forms. What we want is to assign to an offender his due 
punishment ; — and when no other is assigned, there is no need 
for prerogatives of pardon. 

Proceeding, then, upon the conviction that law as distin- 
guished from justice is attended with many evils, let us en- 
quire whether the obstacles to decisions by considerations of 
justice are insuperable. Now I do believe that many of the 
objections which suggest themselves to an enquirer's mind 
are really adventitious — that the administration of simple jus- 
tice may be detached from many of those inconveniences 
which attach no doubt to ill-constituted discretionary courts. 



CHAP. X.] 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 



395 



So confident has been the objection to decisions upon rules 
of equity, that Dr. Paley, in the eighth chapter of the Politi- 
cal division of his Philosophy, has these words : " The first 
maxim of a free state is, that the laws be made by one set of 
men and administered by another. When these offices are 
united in the same person or assembly, particular laws are 
made for particular cases, springing oftentimes from partial 
motives, and directed to private ends." But if these partial 
motives and private ends can be wholly or in a great degree 
excluded, the objection which is founded upon them is in a 
great degree or wholly at an end. If these offices were 
united in any person or assembly, appointed or constituted as 
the administerers of justice now are, I doubt not that partial 
motives and private ends would prevail. But the necessity 
for this is merely assumed ; and upon this assumption Paley 
proceeds >" Let it be supposed that the courts of Westminster 
Hall made their own laws, or that the two houses of parlia- 
ment, with the king at their head, tried and decided causes at 
their bar" — then, he says, the inclinations of the judges would 
inevitably attach on one side or the other, and would interfere 
with the integrity of justice. No doubt, this would happen; 
but because this would happen to the courts of Westminster 
Hall, or to the legislative assemblies, it does not follow that 
it would happen to all arbitrators, however appointed. Thus 
it is that the mind, habitually associating ideas which may 
reasonably be separated, founds its conclusions, not upon the 
proper and essential merits of the question, but upon the ques- 
tion as it is accidentally brought before it. The proper ground 
on which to seek objections to decision on rules of equity, is 
not in the want of adaptation of present judicial institutions, 
but on the impracticability of framing institutions in which 
these rules might safely prevail ; and this impracticability has 
never, so far as the writer knows, been shown. 

Now, without assigning the extent to which arbitration 
may eventually take place of law, or the degree in which it 
may be adopted in the present state of any country, it may be 
asked — Since a large number of disagreements are actually 
settled by arbitration, that is, by rules of equity, why may not 
that number be greatly increased? It is common in cases of 
partnership, and other agreements between several parties, to 
stipulate that if a difference arises it shall be settled by arbi- 
trators. It must be presumed that this mode of settling is 
regarded as the best, else why formally stipulate for it ! The 
superiority, too, must be discovered by experience. It is then 
in fact found that a great number of questions of property and 



396 ADMINISTRATION' OF JUSTICE, [ESSAY III. 

other concerns, are settled more cheaply and more satisfac- 
torily by equity than by law. Why then, we repeat, may not 
that number be indefinitely increased, or who will assign a 
limit to its increase ? Now the constitution of these efficient 
courts of equity, is not permanent. They are not composed 
of judges previously appointed to decide all disputes. They 
are not composed, as the courts of Westminster Hall are, or 
as the houses of parliament are, or as benches of magistrates 
are. If they were, they would be open to the undue influence 
and private purposes of those who composed them. But the 
members of these courts are appointed by the disputants them- 
selves, or by some party to whom they mutually agree to 
commit the appointment. Supposing then the worst, that the 
disputing parties appoint men who are interested in their fa- 
vours ; still the balance is equal : — both may do the same. 
The court is not influenced by undue motives, though its mem- 
bers are ; and if, in consequence of such motives or of any 
other cause, the court cannot agree upon a verdict, what do 
they do \ They appoint an umpire, or, which is the same 
thing, the disputants appoint one. This umpire must be pre- 
sumed to be impartial ; for otherwise the disputants would not 
both have assented to his appointment. At the worst, then, 
an impartial decision may be confidently hoped ; and what 
may not be hoped under better circumstances ? It is, I be- 
lieve, common for disagreeing parties to nominate at once, 
disinterested and upright men ; and if they do this, and take 
care, too, that they shall be intelligent men, almost every thing 
is done which is in the power of man to secure a just decision 
between them. 

Disinterestedness — uprightness — intelligence : — these are 
the qualities which are needed in an arbitrator. That he 
should be disinterested; that is, that he should possess no 
motive to prefer the interests of either party, is obviously 
indispensable. But this is not enough. Other motives than 
interest operate upon some men ; and there is no sufficient 
security for the integrity of a decision, but in that habitual up- 
rightness in the arbitrator by which the sanctions of morality 
are exercised and made influential. The requisiteness of in- 
telligence, both as it implies competent talent and competent 
knowledge, is too manifest for remark. 

Now, one of the great objections which are made to a judi- 
cature appointed for the decision of one dispute, and that one 
only, is, {< the want of legal science" — " the ignorance of those 
who are to decide upon our rights."* This objection applies 
* Paley : Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 6, c. 7. 



CHAP. X.] 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 



397 



in great force to ordinary juries, but it scarcely applies at all 
to intelligent arbitrators properly selected — and not applying, 
we are at liberty to claim in favour of arbitration without 
abatement, " that indifferency," that " integrity" that " disin- 
terestedness," which it is allowed that a casual judicature 
possesses. 

Men become skilful by habit and experience. The man 
who is now selected for the first time in his life to exercise 
the office of an arbitrator, feels perhaps some difficulties. He 
is introduced into a new situation in society ; and, like other 
novices, it is not unlikely that he will be under difficulties re- 
specting his decision. But if the system of arbitration should 
become as common as lawsuits are now, men woflld soon 
learn expertness in the duties of arbitrators. If, in a moder- 
ate town, there were twelve or twenty men, whose characters 
and knowledge recommended them generally, and especially 
to the confidence of their neighbours — these are the men who 
would be selected to adjust their disputes. And even if the 
same individuals were not often employed, the habit of judging, 
a familiarity with such matters, becomes diffused, just as every 
other species of knowledge becomes diffused upon subjects 
that are common in the world. 

Another ground of difficulty to an arbitrator in the present 
state of things, is the habit, which is so general in the com- 
munity, of referring for justice to rules of law. A man when 
he enters an arbitration room, is continually referring in his 
mind to law-books and precedents. This is likely to confuse 
his principles of decision, to intermix foreign things with one 
another, and to produce sometimes perhaps a decision founded 
half upon law and half upon justice. This may indeed occa- 
sionally be in some sort imposed upon him — at least he would 
feel a hesitation, a sort of repugnance to deliver a decision 
which was absolutely contrary to the rule of law. But this 
inconvenience is in a great degree accidental and factitious. 
As the principles of equity assumed their proper dominance 
in the adjustment of disputes, fixed laws would proportionably 
decline in influence and in their practical hold upon the minds 
of men. Their judgments would gradually become emanci- 
pated from this species of shackle ; — they would rise, disen- 
cumbered of arbitrary maxims, and decide according to those 
maxims of moral equity for the dictates of which no man has 
far to seek. The whole system tends to the invigoration and 
elevation of the mind. A man who is conscious of an abso- 
lute authority to decide — of an uncontrolled discretionary 
power, in a question perhaps of important interests, is ani- 

34 



398 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. [ESSAY HI. 



mated by the moral eminence of his station to exert a vigorous 
and honorable endeavour to award sound justice. You are 
not to expect in such a man, what we find in arbitrary judges, 
that his very absoluteness will make him capricious and tyran- 
nical ; for the moment he has pronounced his decision, a 
calamity, if that decision have been unjust, awaits him ; — the 
reprobation of his neighbours, of his friends, and of the public. 
The exercise of his discretion is bound to the side of upright- 
ness, though not by ordinary pains and penalties, yet by vir- 
tual pains and penalties, which to such men as are chosen for 
arbitrators are amongst the most powerful that can be applied. 

One thing is indispensable to an extended system of arbi- 
tration, that the civil magistrate should sanction its decisions 
by a willing enforcement of the verdict. It is usual for dis- 
putants who refer to arbitrators to sign an agreement to abide 
by their decision ; and this agreement may by some simple 
process of law be enforced. The law does indeed now sanc- 
tion arbitrations ; but then it is in a formal and expensive 
way. A deed is drawn up, and a stamp must be affixed, and 
a solicitor must be employed ; — so that at last the disagreeing 
parties do but partly reap the benefits of arbitration. This 
should be remedied. The reader will observe that I say law 
is wanted to enforce the decisions of equity. No doubt it is. 
It is wanted for the same reason as government is wanted, to 
exert power , which power, it is evident, must be exercised by 
the government. But if any critic should say that this ac- 
knowledges the insufficiency of equity, I answer, that we are 
speaking of unconnected things. The business of equity is 
to decide between right and wrong, and to say what is right 
— with which the infliction of penalties or the enforcement 
of decisions has no concern. A court and jury say that a 
man shall be sent for six months to a prison, but it forms no 
part of their business to execute the sentence. 

With respect to the applicability of courts of equity to crim- 
inal trials, I see nothing that necessarily prevents it. Men 
who can judge respecting matters of property and personal 
rights, can judge respecting questions of innocence and guilt. 
In one view, indeed, they can judge more easily ; because 
moral desert is determinable upon more simple and obvious 
principles than claims of property, Many who would feel 
much difficulty in deciding involved disputes about money or 
land, would feel none in determining, with sufficient accuracy, 
the degree of an offender's guilt. 

It being manifest, then, that offences against the peace of 
society may be as properly referred to courts of equity as 



€HAP. X.] ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 399 

questions of right — what should be the constitution of such 
a court 1 But here the reader is to remember, that the objec- 
tion is not merely or principally to the constitution of present 
courts, but to the principles of fixed law upon which justice 
is administered- So that, if principles of equity were substi- 
tuted, the constitution of the court would become a secondary 
concern ; and courts consisting of a jury and a judge might 
not be bad, though they were not the best. If half a dozen 
intelligent and upright men could be appointed to examine 
the truth of charges against a prisoner, and if they were al- 
lowed to award a just punishment, I should have little fear, 
after making allowances for the frailties of humanity, that 
their penalties would generally be just ; — at any rate, that 
they would be more accordant with justice than penalties 
which are regulated by fixed law. The difficulty is in pro- 
curing the arbitrators, a difficulty greater than that which ob- 
tains in cases of private right. For in the first place offend- 
ers against the peace of society generally excite the feelings 
of the public, and especially of the neighbourhood, against 
them. Men too often prejudge cases, and the prisoner is fre- 
quently condemned in the public mind before any evidence 
lias been brought before a jury. This indicates a difficulty 
in selecting impartial men. And then, in the case of arbitra- 
tions, each party chooses one or more of the judges. Shall 
the same privilege be allowed to persons charged with crime ? 
If it were, would they not select persons who would frustrate 
all the endeavours to administer justice ? Besides, where is 
the conflicting party who shall be equally interested in ap- 
pointing arbitrators of opposite dispositions 1 And if both 
did appoint such, what is the hope of a temperate and rational 
decision 1 Again, there are offences which are regarded with 
peculiar severity by particular classes of men. A court com- 
posed of country gentlemen, would hardly award a fair verdict 
against a poacher. 

These considerations and others indicate difficulty ; and 
perhaps the difficulty cannot better be avoided than by a court 
selected by chance. In the selection of juries there have 
recently been introduced improvements. Still, if equity rather 
than law is to be regarded, something more is needed. Now, 
though a jury be ignorant, the judge is learned ; and a learned 
judge is indispensable where law is to be applied. But if 
simple justice be the object, such a judge becomes compara- 
tively little requisite ; yet when we have dispensed with the 
intelligence of the judge, we must provide for greater intelli- 
gence in the jury. A jury from the lower classes of the com- 



400 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. [ESSAY III. 



munity may serve with tolerable sufficiency the purposes of 
justice in the present system^ but if they were converted 
from jurymen into arbitrators, much more of intelligence, 
and, we may add, much more of elevation of character, is 
required. To endeavour to obtain this intelligence and up- 
rightness by a mode of chance selection, must always be very 
uncertain of success. If those who were eligible for this 
species of jury, were obliged to possess a certain qualifica- 
tion in point of property : if, of those who were thus eligible, 
a competent number were selected by ballot, and if the pris- 
oner and the prosecutor were allowed a large right of chal- 
lenge, perhaps every thing would be done which is in the 
power of man. 

The number of arbitrators who form a court of equity 
should always be small. Large numbers effect less good by 
accumulating wisdom, than harm by putting off patient inves- 
tigation to one another, and by " dividing the shame " of a 
partial decision. 

The members of such courts, though capable of deciding 
with competent propriety on questions of right and wrong 
when facts are laid before them, may be incapable, from want 
of habit, of eliciting those facts from reluctant or partial wit- 
nesses. Now, I perceive no reason why, both in criminal 
and civil courts, a person could not be employed, whose pro- 
fession it was to elicit the truth. Is he to be a pleader or an 
advocate ? No. The very name is sufficient to discredit the 
office in the view of pure morality. One professional man 
only should be employed. That one should be employed by 
neither party separately, but by both, or by the state. It 
should be his simple and sole business to elicit the truth, and 
to elicit it from the witnesses of both sides. Securities 
against corruption in this man, are obviously as easy as in 
arbitrators themselves. The judges of England evince, in 
general, an admirable example of impartiality ; and as to cor- 
ruptness, it is almost unknown. What reason is there for 
questioning that officers such as we speak of, may not be in- 
corrupt and impartial too ? If handsome remuneration be 
necessary to secure them from undue influence and to main- 
tain the dignity of their office, let them by all means have it. 
Even in a present court of law or justice — suppose the ex- 
amination of witnesses was taken from barristers and con- 
ducted by the judge, does not every man perceive that the 
truth might be elicited by one interrogator of the witnesses 
of both parties ? And does not every one perceive that such 
an interrogator would elicit it in a far more upright and manly 



CHAP. X.] 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 



401 



way, than is now the case ? Pleading is a thing wliich, in 
the administration of justice, ought not to be so much as 
named. 

Bearing along in our minds, then, the inconveniences and 
the evils of Fixed Laws — let us suppose that a circuit was 
taken, and that courts were held from which the application 
of fixed law was, so far as is practicable, excluded. Suppose 
these courts to consist of three or five or seven men, selected 
according to the utmost skill of precautionary measures, for 
their intelligence and uprightness, and of one publicly autho- 
rized and dignified person, whose office it should be to assist 
the court in the discovery of the truth. Suppose that, when 
the facts of the case, and as far as possible the motives and 
intentions of the parties, were laid open, these three, or five, 
or seven men, pronounced a decision as accordant as they 
could do with the immutable principles of right and wrong, 
and excluding almost , all reference to fixed laws, and prece- 
dents, and technicalities ; — is it not probable, is it not reason- 
able, to expect that the purposes of justice would be more 
effectually answered than they are at present ? And even if 
justice was not better administered, would not such a system 
exclude various existing evils connected with legal institu- 
tions, evils so great as to be real calamities to the state 1 

Perhaps it is needless to remark, that all courts of equity 
which are recognized by the state should be public. Individ- 
uals who refer their disputes to private arbitrators, may have 
them privately adjusted if they please. But publicity is a 
powerful means of securing that impartiality which it is the 
first object in the administration of justice to secure. 

There is one advantage, collateral indeed to the adminis- 
tration of equity, but not therefore the less considerable, that 
it would have a strong tendency to diffuse sound ideas of jus- 
tice in the public mind. As it is, it may unhappily be affirmed 
that courts of judicature spread an habitual confusion of ideas 
upon the subject ; and, what is worse, very frequently incul- 
cate that as just which is really the contrary. Our notions 
of a court of judicature are, or they ought to be, that it is a 
place sacred to justice. But when, superinduced upon this 
notion, it is the fact, that by very many of its decisions jus- 
tice is put into the background ; that law is elevated into 
supremacy ; that the technicalities of forms, and the finesse 
of pleaders, triumph over the decisions of rectitude in the 
mind — the effect cannot be otherwise than bad. It cannot 
do otherwise than confound, in the public mind, notions of 
good and evil, and teach them to think that every thing is 

34* 



402 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 



[ESSAY III. 



virtuous which courts of justice sanction. — If, instead of this, 
the public were habituated to a constant appeal to equity, and 
to a constant conformity to its dictates, the effect would be 
opposite, and therefore good. Justice would stand promi- 
nently forward to the public view as the object of reverence 
and regard. The distinctions between equity and injustice 
would become, by habit, broad and defined. Instead of con- 
founding the public ideas of morality, a court of judicature 
would teach, very powerfully teach, discrimination. A court, 
seriously endeavouring to discover the decision of justice, 
and uprightly awarding it between man and man, would be 
a spectacle of which the moral influence could not be lost 
upon the people. 



In thus recommending the application of pure moral prin- 
ciples in the administration of justice, the writer does not 
presume to define how far the present condition of human 
virtue may capacitate a legislature to exchange fixed rules of 
decision for the impartial judgments of upright men. That 
it may be done to a much greater extent than it is now done, 
he entertains no doubt. A legislature might perhaps begin 
with that pernicious species of arbitrary rules which consists 
of technicalities and forms. To deny justice to a man be- 
cause he has not claimed it in a specific form of words, or 
because some legal inaccuracy has been committed in the 
proceedings, must always disapprove itself to the plain judg- 
ments of mankind. Begin then with the most palpable and 
useless rules. Whatever can be dispensed with, it is a sa- 
cred duty to abolish, and every act of judicious abolition will 
facilitate the abolition of others : — it will prepare the public 
mind for the contemplation of purer institutions, and gradu- 
ally enable it to adopt those institutions in the national 
practice. 

As to the particular modes of securing the administration 
of simple justice, the writer would say, that those which he 
has suggested, he has suggested with deference. His busi- 
ness is rather with the principles of sound political institu- 
tions, than with the form and mode oT applying them to prac- 
tice. Other and better means than he has suggested are 
probably to be found. The candid reader will acknowledge, 
that in advocating institutions so different from those which 
actually obtain, the political moralist is under peculiar diffi- 
culties and disadvantages. The best machinery of social in- 



CHAP. XI.] PROPER SUBJECTS OF PENAL ANIMADVERSION. 403 



stitutions is discovered rather from experience than from 
reasoning, and upon this machinery, in the present instance, 
experience has thrown little light. 



Here as in some other parts of this work, the reader will observe that 
alterations are proposed and improvements suggested which have been 
actually adopted since these Essays were written. Our courts, and also 
the legislature, have lately paid some attention to the modes in which 
public justice is administered. As yet, the alterations which have been 
made are chiefly confined to the criminal laws: but our judges are now 
beginning to exert the discretionary power which is vested in them, in 
preventing the course of justice from being, so frequently as it heretofore 
has been, intercepted by technicalities and verbal inacuracy. Of this 
the public had lately an instance in the cause of Gulley v. the Bishop of 
Exeter. A Parliamentary Commission has been appointed, and is now 
sitting, whose object it is to devise improvements in the practice of our 
courts of judicature. — Ed. 



CHAPTER XI. 

OF THE PROPER SUBJECTS OF PENAL ANIMAD- 
VERSION. 

Crimes regarded by the Civil and the Moral Law — Created offences — 
Seduction — Duelling — Insolvents — Criminal debtors — Gradations of 
guilt in insolvency — Libels : mode of punishing — Effects of the laws 
respecting libels — Effects of public censure — Libels on the Government 
— Advantages of a free statement of the truth — Freedom of the Press. 

The man who compares the actions which are denounced 
as wrong in the Moral Law, with those which are punished by 
civil government, will find that they are far from an accord- 
ance. The Moral Law declares many actions to be wicked, 
which human institutions do not punish ; and there are some 
that these institutions punish, of which there is no direct re- 
prehension in the communicated Will of God. 

It is not easy to refer all these incongruities to the applica- 
tion of any one general principle of discrimination. You 
cannot say that the magistrate adverts only to those crimes 
which are pernicious to society, for all crimes are pernicious. 
Nor can you say that he selects the greatest for his animad- 
version, because he punishes many of which the guilt is in- 
comparably less than others which he passes by. Nor again 



404 PROPER SUBJECTS OF 

can you say that he punishes only those in which there is an 
injured and complaining party ; for he punishes some of 
which all the parties were voluntary agents. Lastly — and 
what seems at first view very extraordinary — we find that 
civil governments create offences which, simply regarded, have 
no existence in the view of morality, and punish them with 
severity, whilst others, unquestionably immoral, pass with im- 
punity. 

The practical rule which appears to be regarded in the se- 
lection of offences for punishment, is founded upon the ex- 
isting circumstances of the community. 

Offences against which, from any cause, the public disap- 
probation is strongly directed, are usually visited by the arm 
of the civil magistrate, partly because that disapprobation im- 
plies that the offence disturbs the order of society, and partly 
because, in the case of such offences, penal animadversion is 
efficient and vigorous by the ready co-operation of the public. 
Thus it is with almost all offences against property, and with 
those which personally injure or alarm us. Every man is 
desirous of prosecuting ' a housebreaker, for he feels that his 
own house may be robbed. Every man is desirous of pun- 
ishing an assault or a threatening letter, because he considers 
that his peace may be disturbed by the one, and his person 
injured by the other. This general and strong reprobation 
makes detection comparatively easy, and punishment efficient. 

Examples of the contrary kind are to be found in the 
crimes of drunkenness, of profane swearing, of fornication, 
of duelling. Not that we have any reason to expect, that at 
the bar of heaven some of these crimes will be at all less ob- 
noxious to punishment than the former, but because, from 
whatever reason, the public very negligently co-operate with 
law in punishing them, and manifest little desire to see its penal- 
ties inflicted. An habitual drunkard does much more harm to 
his family and to the world, than he who picks my pocket of 
a guinea ; yet we raise a hue and cry after the thief, and 
suffer the other to become drunk every day. So it is with 
duelling and fornication. The public know very well that 
these things are wrong, and pernicious to the general welfare ; 
but scarcely any one will prosecute those who commit them. 
The magistrate may make laws, but in such a state of public 
feeling they will remain as a dead letter ; or, which perhaps 
is as bad, be called out upon accidental and irregular oc- 
casions. 

Another rule which appears to be practically, though not 
theoretically, adopted is, to punish those offences of which 




CHAP. XI.] 



PENAL ANIMADVERSION. 



405 



there is a natural prosecutor. Thus it is with every kind of 
robbery and violence. Some one especially is aggrieved : 
the sense of grievances induces a ready prosecution, and 
whatever is readily prosecuted by the people will generally 
be denounced in the laws of the state. The opposite fact is 
exhibited in the case of many offences against the public, 
such as smuggling, and generally in the case of all frauds 
upon the revenue. No individual is especially aggrieved, 
(unless in the case of regular dealers whose business is in- 
jured by illicit trading,) and the consequence is, either that 
* numberless frauds of this kind are suffered to pass with im- 
punity, or that the government is obliged to employ persons 
to detect the offenders, and to prosecute them itself. There 
are some crimes which seem in this respect of an interme- 
diate sort ; where there is a natural prosecutor, and yet 
where that prosecutor is not the most aggrieved person. 
This is instanced in the case of seduction. The father pro- 
secutes, but he does not sustain one half the injury that is 
suffered by the daughter. There are obvious reasons why 
the most injured party should be at best an inefficient prose- 
cutor ; and the result is consonant — that this offence is fre- 
quently not punished at all, or, as is the case in our own country, 
it is punished very slightly — so slightly, that in no case does 
the person of the offender suffer. This lenity does not arise 
from the venialness of this crime, or that of adultery. They 
are amongst the most enormous that can be perpetrated by 
man. Of the less flagitious of the two, it has been affirmed 
" that not one half of the crimes for which men suffer death 
by the laws of England are so flagitious as this."* This en- 
ormity is distinctly asserted in both the Old Testament and 
the New ; in the first, adultery was punished with death ; in the 
second, both this and fornication, which is less criminal than 
seduction, is repeatedly assorted with the greatest of crimes* and 
alike threatened with the tremendous punishments of religion. 

Such considerations lead the enquirer to expect that the 
offences which are denounced in a statute book will bear some 
relation to the state of virtue in the people. The more vir- 
tuous the people are, the greater will be the number of crimes 
which can be efficiently visited by the arm of power. Thus, 
during some part of the seventeenth century, that is, during 
the interregnum, adultery was punished with death ; and it 
may be remarked, without paying a compliment to the religion 
or politics of those times, that the actual practice of morality 
was then, amongst a large proportion of the nation, at a 
* Paley: Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 3, p. 3.- -Seduction. 



406 



PROPER SUBJECTS OF 



[essay nr. 



higher standard than it is now. No society exists without 
some species of penal justice — from that of a gang of thieves 
to that of a select and pious Christian community. The 
thieves will punish some crimes, t but they will be few. The 
virtuous community will punish, or, which for our present 
purpose is the same thing, animadvert upon, very many. In 
a well-ordered family many things are held to be offences, and 
are noticed as such by the parent, which in a vicious family 
pass unregarded. 

When therefore we contemplate the unnumbered offences 
against morality which the magistrate does not attempt to dis- 
courage, we may take comfort from hoping that, as the virtue 
of mankind increases, it may increase in more than a simple 
ratio. As trfe public become prepared for it, governments 
will lend their aid ; and thus they who have now little re- 
straint from some crimes but that which exists in their own 
minds, may hereafter be deterred by the fear of human pen- 
alty. And this induces the observation, that to throw obsta- 
cles in the way of increasing the subjects of penal animad- 
version, is both impolitic and wrong. This, unhappily, has 
frequently been done in our own country. Some public 
writers (writers not of great eminence to be sure) have taken 
great pains to ridicule legislation respecting cruelty to ani- 
mals — and the endeavours on the part of well-disposed men 
to enforce almost obsolete statutes against some other com- 
mon crimes. There are, surely, a sufficiency of obstacles to 
the extension of the subjects of penal legislation, without 
needlessly adding more. Besides these men directly encour- 
age the crimes. To sneer at him who prosecutes a ferocious 
man for cruelty to an animal, is to encourage cruelty. When 
a man is brought before a magistrate for profaneness — to joke 
about how the culprit swore in the court, is to teach men to 
be profane. 

That which we have called, in the commencement of this 
chapter, the creation of offences, demands peculiar solicitude 
on the part of a government. By a created offence, I mean 
an act which, but for the law, would be no offence at all. Of 
this class are some offences against the game laws. He who 
on another continent was accustomed without blame to knock 
down hares and pheasants as he found occasion, would feel 
the force of this creation of offences when, on doing the 
same thing in England, he was carried to a jail. The most 
fruitful cause of these factitious offences is in extensive tax- 
ation. When a new tax is imposed, the legislature endeav- 



CHAP. XI.] 



PENAL ANIMADVERSION. 



407 



ours to secure its due payment by requiring or forbidding cer- 
tain acts. These acts, which antecedently were indifferent, 
become criminal by the legislative prohibition, or obligatory 
by the legislative command ; and non-compliance is therefore 
punished as an offence by the civil power.* There is no 
more harm in a man's buying brandy in France and bringing 
it to England, than in buying a horse of his neighbour. The 
law lays a duty upon brandy, prohibits any man from bring- 
ing it to the country except through a custom-house, and treats 
as criminals those who do. 

Now we do not affirm that those who commit these created 
offences do not absolutely offend against morality. They do 
offend ; for in general every evasion or violation of the laws 
of the state is an immoral act. But this does not affect the 
truth, that such offences should be as few as they can be. 
The reasons are, first, that they are encroachments upon civil 
liberty, and secondly, which is our present concern — that they 
are pernicious to the public. Men perceive the distinction 
between moral crimes and legal crimes, without perhaps ever 
having enquired into its foundation. And they act upon 
this perception. He who has been convicted of killing- 
hares, or evading taxes, or smuggling lace, is commonly 
willing to tell you of his exploits. He who has been con- 
victed of stealing from his neighbour, hangs down his head 
for shame. The sanctions of law ought to approve them- 
selves to the common judgments of mankind. Whatever 
the state denounces, that the public ought to feel to be crimi- 
nal, and to be willing to suppress. The penalties of the law 
ought to be accompanied in men's minds by the sanction of 
morality. They should feel that to be punished by a magis- 
trate was tantamount to being a bad man. When, instead 
of this, there is an intricate admixture — when we see some 
things which are, simply regarded, innocent, visited by the 
same punishment as others that all men feel to be wicked, 
men are likely to feel a diminished respect for penal law 
itself. They learn to regard the requisitions of law as hav- 
ing little countenance from rectitude ; and think that to vio- 
late them, though it may be dangerous, is not wrong. It does 
not approve itself, as a whole, to the public judgment ; and there 
are many perhaps who feel, on this account, a diminished res- 
pect for penal institutions without being able to assign the reason. 

* I have somewhere met with a book which contended that to commit 
these created offences was no breach of morality. This, however is not 
true, because the obligation to obey civil government, in its innocent en- 
actments, is clearly stated in the Moral Law. 



408 



PROPER SUBJECTS OF 



[essay III. 



In the extension of this political and moral evil the great- 
est of all agents is war. With respect to the creation of of- 
fences, it stands sui generis, and converts a greater number of 
indifferent actions into punishable ones, than all other agents 
united. War produces the extensive taxation of which we 
speak; but the practical system has offences peculiar to itself 
— offences which the Moral Law of our Creator never de- 
nounced, but which the system of war visits with tremendous 
punishments. Adam Smith adverts to this deplorable circum- 
stance. He says that the punishment of death to a sentinel 
who falls asleep upon his watch, " how necessary soever, al- 
ways appears to be excessively severe. The natural atrocity 
of the crime seems to be so little, and the punishment so 
great, that it is with great difficulty that our heart can reconcile 
itself to it"* Nor will the heart, nor ought the heart, ever to 
be reconciled to it. It is, I know, perfectly easy to urge ar- 
guments in its favour from expediency and the like ; but urge 
these arguments as you may, the uninitiated or unhardened 
heart will never be convinced ; and it is vain to tell us that 
that is right, which the immutable dictates in our minds pro- 
nounce to be wrong. There are, indeed, few spectacles more 
calculated to sicken the heart and to make it turn in disgust 
away from the monstrousness of human institutions, than a 
contemplation of martial law — a code which not only creates 
a multiplicity of offences that were never prohibited by our 
merciful Parent, but which visits the commission of those of- 
fences with inflictions that ought not to be so much as named 
amongst a Christian people. 

Whilst then the philanthropist hopes that some of those in- 
trinsically criminal actions to which human penalties are not 
attached, will one day become the object of their animadver- 
sion, he hopes that this other class, which are not intrinsically 
vicious, will gradually be expunged from amongst penal laws. 
Both the additions to, and the deductions from, the system 
which morality dictates, are the result of the impure or cor- 
rupt condition of society. 

Meantime some approaches to a juster standard to regulate 
penal animadversion may be made, by transferring, in our own 
country, some offences from the civil to the criminal courts. 
An instance exists in the crime of seduction and its affinities. 
This crime, whether we regard it simply or in its conse- 
quences, or in the deliberation with which it is committed, is, 
as we have just seen, excessively flagitious. How then does 
it happen that its perpetration is regarded as a matter for the 
* Theory of Moral Sentiments. 



CHAP. XI.] 



PENAL ANIMADVERSION. 



409 



cognizance only of legal courts, and for the punishment only 
of a pecuniary fine ? What should we say to that mode of 
justice which allowed the ruffian who assaults your person to 
escape by paying money ? Yet even a severe assault does 
not approach, in enormity, to the crime of which we speak. 
I would punish seducers in their persons. I would send 
them to prison like other malefactors ; and oblige them to la- 
bour, or subject them to that system of prison discipline 
which might give hope (if any thing could give hope) of re- 
formation. Alas ! if there is no reason for not acting thus, 
there is a motive. That class of society to whom the fra- 
ming of laws is entrusted, regard the crime with but very am- 
biguous detestation. " The law of honour," it is said, " ap- 
plauds the address of a successful intrigue." How should 
they who value themselves upon being the subjects of the 
law of honour, wish to consign a man to prison for that which 
the law of honour applauds 1 I doubt not that, if seduction 
were confined to low life, the legislature would quickly send 
seducers to the criminal courts. Would they were sent ! 
The very idea of the punishment would, amongst gay men 
in the superior walks of life, often prevent the. crime. To be 
seized by police ! To be carried to a jail ! To be brought 
to the bar with thieves and murderers ! To be sentenced by 
the court ! To be carried back to labour in a prison, or to be 
embarked for New South Wales ! — The idea, I say, of this 
would go far to prevent the perpetration of this abandoned 
crime. 

Duelling is another of the crimes which should be pros- 
ecuted in criminal courts. It is indeed prosecuted there if any 
where ; but it is seldom prosecuted at all. The ultimate 
cause is easily discovered : — the crime is sanctioned by the 
law of honour. Like the preceding, if it were practised only 
by the poor,* it would quickly be visited by the arm of the 
law. Of the probability of this, we have an illustration in 
the case of boxing. One or more of the judges have recently 
declared, that if a man is convicted of having caused another's 
death in a boxing match, they will inflict the sentence which 
the law denounces upon manslaughter. The law of honour 
has no voice here ; and here the voice of reason and common 
sense is regarded. Make boxing-matches, like duelling, a 

* In France, it is said, and in America, duelling is descending to the 
inferior classes of Society. If this should become general, we may soon 
reckon upon an efficient diminution of the practice. The rich will for- 
bear it on account of its vulgarity, and they will take care to punish it 
when it is practised only by the poor. 

35 



410 



PROPER SUBJECTS OF 



[ESSAY III. 



part of the system of the law of honour, and we shall hear 
very little about the punishment of manslaughter. The reader 
saw, in the last Essay, what an influence the law of honour 
had in a case of duelling on the mind, and on the charge of a 
judge on the Scotch bench. — These things suggest sorrowful 
reflections ! 

Much and very contradictoiy declamation is often employed 
respecting the treatment which is due to those who become 
insolvent. By our present law, the debtor may be arrested, 
that is, he may be imprisoned ; on which account it may be 
allowable to range the discussion under the head of penal law. 
Imprisonment for debt is, in effect, a penalty, although it be 
not inflicted by a court of justice. 

One class of persons declaims against the oppression of 
immuring men in a prison who have committed no crime ; 
against the cruelty of the relentless creditor, who, when mis- 
fortune has overtaken a fellow creature, adds to his miseries 
the terrors of the law, and deprives him of the opportunity 
of exertion, and his family of the means of support : — and 
all this, it is said, is done without obtaining any other advan- 
tage to the persecutor than the gratification of his resentment 
or malignity. Another class expatiates upon the unprincipled 
fraud which is committed upon industrious traders by spend- 
thrifts or villains — upon the hardship of leaving honest men 
at the mercy of every idle or profligate person who has ad- 
dress enough to obtain credit, and upon the absurdity of that 
philanthropy which would prevent them from deterring him 
from his frauds by the terrors of a jail. 

To determine between these vehement and conflicting 
opinions, the great question is, Whether a debtor is a crimi- 
nal ? If he is, there is no reason why he should not be treated 
as a criminal ; and if he is not, there is no reason why an in- 
nocent man should meet the fate which is due only to the 
guilty. These contradictory opinions appear to result from 
the circumstance, that one set of persons regard insolvents as 
criminals, and the other as unfortunate men. The truth, how- 
ever, is, that many are of one class and many of the other. 
It is therefore no subject of surprise, that when one set of 
persons view one side of the question, and another the oppo- 
site, they should involve themselves and the subject in con- 
flict and contradiction. 

From these considerations one conclusion appears plainly 
to follow — that no undiscriminating law upon the subject can 
be even tolerably just ; that to concede the power of imprison- 
ing all debtors, is to permit oppression : that to deny it to any, 



CHAP. XI.] 



PENAL ANIMADVERSION. 



411 



is to withhold punishment from guilt. In order therefore to 
attain the ends of .justice, it is absolutely indispensable that 
discrimination should be made in every individual case. 

Suppose, then, the first legal step towards enforcing pay- 
ment from a debtor were, not to obtain a writ, but to summon 
him before a magistrate. If he refuses to attend to the sum- 
mons a warrant might be granted for his arrest, since the rea- 
sonable inference would be, that his motives for withholding 
payment, or the causes by which he had become unable to 
pay, were such as he was afraid to acknowledge. If he at- 
tended, the case would be heard — not from lawyers but from 
the parties themselves. Supposing it appeared that the debtor 
was capable of paying but unwilling, or that, although then 
unable, his inability had been occasioned by manifest miscon- 
duct : — let him be committed to prison. And why ? Because 
he is an offender against public justice, and, like other offend- 
ers, should await his punishment. 

Supposing, again, it appeared that the debtor could not pay, 
and that his insolvency involved no fault : — let him be regard- 
ed as a man overtaken by misfortune, as a man whom it would 
be oppressive and wrong to punish, and who therefore should 
be set at large. His property of course would be secured. 

Discrimination of this kind, whatever might be the mode 
of its exercise, appears to be a sine qua non of the adminis- 
tration of justice. It is exceedingly obvious, that when ac- 
tions of which the external consequences may be the same, 
result some from innocent and some from criminal causes, 
they should not receive the same treatment at the hand of the 
law : — just as he who accidentally occasions a man's death 
should not receive the same treatment as he who commits 
murder. Now this manifest requisite of justice is in no other 
way attainable in the case of insolvency, than by investigating 
the conduct of every individual man. 

When the criminal debtors are committed like other crim- 
inals to prison, they should be regarded as public offenders, 
and as such become amenable to penal animadversion. 
Courts of a simple construction might perhaps be erected for 
this class of offenders, which might possess the power of 
awarding such punishments for the various degrees of guilt 
as the law thought fit to prescribe. Nor does there appear 
any reason for deviating materially from those species of pun- 
ishment which are properly employed for other offenders, be- 
cause insolvency is occasioned by guilt in endless gradations, 
and sometimes by great crime. The number of insolvents 
who are entirely innocent is comparatively small, and of those 



412 



PROPER SUBJECTS OF 



[ESSAY lit, 



who are not innocent the gradations of criminality are without 
end. Some are incautious or imprudent, some are heedlessly 
and some shamefully negligent, and some again are atrociously 
profligate. The whole amount of injury which is inflicted 
upon the people of this country by criminal insolvency, is 
much greater than that which is inflicted by any one other 
crime which is ordinarily punished by the law. Neither 
swindling, nor forgery, nor robbery, in their varieties, pro- 
duces an equal amount of mischief. To every single indi- 
vidual who loses his property by theft or fraud, there are pro- 
bably twenty who lose it by criminal debtors. Such facts 
evidently furnish weighty considerations for the legislator as 
the guardian of the public welfare ; and that system of juris- 
prudence is surely defective which allows so much public 
mischief almost without restraint. Justice and policy alike 
indicate the necessity of more efficient security against the 
want of probity in debtors, than has hitherto been furnished 
by the law. 

A man who begins business with a thousand pounds of his 
own, and who keeps a stock of goods to the value of fifteen 
hundred, is obliged in honesty to insure. If he does not in- 
sure, and a fire destroys his goods, so that his creditors lose 
five hundred pounds, he surely is chargeable with a moral of- 
fence. It cannot be just knowingly to endanger the loss of 
other men's property, which has been entrusted in the con- 
fidence of its repayment. But if such a man commits injus- 
tice towards others, upon what grounds is he to be exempted 
from the rightful consequences of injustice ? We would not 
speak of such a man as a criminal, nor affirm that he deserves 
severity of punishment ; but we say that, since he has need- 
lessly and negligently sacrificed the property of other men, it 
is fit that the penal legislator should notice and discountenance 
his offence. 

Another trader, without any vicious intention, " neglects 
his business." His customers by degrees leave him. Year 
passes after year with an income continually diminishing, 
until at length he finds that his property is less than his debts. 
This man is more vicious than the former, and should be vis- 
ited by a greater amount of punishment. Another, with a 
prosperous business and no great vices, allows a more expen- 
sive domestic establishment than his income warrants. His 
property gradually lapses away and at last he cannot pay 
twenty shillings in the pound to his creditors. Can it be dis- 
puted that a man who knows that he is in a course of life 
which will probably end in defrauding others of their prop- 



CHAP. XI.] PENAL ANIMADVERSION. 413 

erty, should be regarded in any other light than as an offender 
against justice ? And can it be unreasonable for the jurispru- 
dence of a community to act towards such an offender as if 
he were a dishonest, man ? 

Another engages in speculations which endanger the prop- 
erty of his creditors, and which, if they do not succeed, will 
defraud them. Such speculations certainly are dishonest ; 
and when they prove unsuccessful, he who makes them should 
be treated as the committer of voluntary fraud. The pro- 
priety of this is enforced by the consideration, that it is" nearly 
impossible for creditors to provide against such fraudulence ; 
and laws should be severe in proportion as the facilities of 
wrong are great. 

Such gradations might be multiplied indefinitely, until we 
arrived at those in which men contract debts without the pro- 
bable prospect of payment ; and thence up to the intentionally 
and voluntarily fraudulent. For such offenders the penalties 
should be severe. The guilt of some of them is at least as 
great as that of him who robs you of your purse or forges 
your signature. With respect, indeed, to those who pursue a 
deliberate course of fraud, and, under pretence of business, 
possess themselves of the property of others, and expend it 
or carry it off, there are few crimes connected with property 
that are equally atrocious. The law, indeed, appears to ac- 
knowledge this, for its penalty for a fraudulent bankrupt is des- 
perately severe. Without stopping to enquire why it is so 
seldom inflicted, one truth appears to be plain, that a penal 
system which, like ours, scarcely adverts to crimes so ex- 
tended and so great, must be greatly defective. Surely there 
are many persons who walk our streets every day, yet who 
are, in the view both of natural and of Christian justice, in- 
comparably more guilty and more justly obnoxious to punish- 
ment, than the majority of those whom the law confines in 
jails or transports beyond the ocean. 

We are persuaded, that if the penal law took cognizance 
of all insolvents, and regarded all who could not satisfactorily 
account for their insolvency as public delinquents — if these 
were prosecuted as systematically as thieves are now, and if 
by these means the idea of "crime" was associated with 
their conduct in the public mind, the deplorable mischiefs of 
bankruptcy would be quickly and greatly diminished. In the 
restraint of all crimes the power of public opinion is great. 
At present, unhappily, the man whose offence is justly worthy 
of imprisonment or transportation, obtains his certificate, and 
then becomes the accepted associate of virtuous men. But 

35* 



414 



PROPER SUBJECTS OF 



[ESSAY III. 



teach the public to connect with him the idea not of a bank- 
rupt but of a prisoner ; not of a man who has acted dishon- 
ourably towards his creditors, but of a convicted criminal — • 
and this association would cease. Who would admit a foot- 
pad to his table ? And who would admit to his table a man 
who was just like a footpad ? It requires little knowledge of 
the constitution of society to know, that when the offences of 
fraudulent and negligent insolvency are ranked in the public 
estimation with those of ordinary criminals, men will be in- 
fluenced by a new, and a powerful, and an efficient motive to 
avoid them. 



It is a question that involves some difficulties, whether the 
publication of statements injurious to individuals, to a govern- 
ment, or to religion, are proper subjects of penal animadver- 
sion. That the publishers of these statements frequently act 
criminally is certain, and they are therefore justly obnoxious 
to punishment : but still it is to be enquired, whether they can 
be efficiently punished ; and whether, if they be, the punish- 
ment can be such as to attain the proper ends of all punish- 
ment — reformation, example, and redress. 

And here we are presented, at the outset, with a great im- 
pediment resulting from the nature of fixed law. If a libeller 
is to be legally punished, the law must give some definition 
of what a libel is. Now it is actually impossible to frame any 
definition which shall not either on the one hand give license 
to injurious publications by its laxity, or on the other prohibit 
a just publication of the truth by its rigour. The utmost sa- 
gacity of legislation cannot avoid one of these two conse- 
quences. They are not a Scylla and Charybdis which a wary 
helmsman may avoid : on the one or the other the legislator 
will infallible find himself wrecked. 

If libellers, like other offenders, were tried by courts of 
equity, which were guided in their award by the simple merits 
of the case, without any regard to the definitions of law — the 
case would be different. We might then expect that the pub- 
lication of wholesome truths would receive no punishment 
though they constituted what is defined to be a libel now, and 
that the publication of gratuitous malignity would receive a 
punishment though lawyers now might say that the book was 
not a libel. 

Yet even if these difficulties resulting from the vain attempt 
at legal definitions were surmounted, and equity alone were 
entrusted with the decision, it may still be greatly doubted 



CHAP. XI.] 



PENAL ANIMADVERSION. 



415 



whether, in the large majority of this class of publications, 
all attempts at direct punishment would not be better avoided. 

Refer to the objects of punishment. Assume for the pres- 
sent that reformation is the first. Is it probable, from the 
motives and nature of the offence that the reformation of 
the offender can often be hoped from any species of judicial 
penalties ? 

The second object we suppose to be example. Men may, no 
doubt, be deterred from publishing injurious statements by the 
fear of consequences ; and thus far the end is attamed. Sup- 
posing that the publishers could generally be discovered, and 
that the decisions of the courts were practically just, I should 
think the object of example would be a strong reason for 
inflicting judicial punishment upon the libeller : — still other 
considerations will presently be submitted, which induce the 
belief that such punishment is not the most effectual nor the 
most proper means of prevention. 

Then as to redress. There is only one way in which ra- 
tional redress can be attained by the aspersed party ; and that 
is, by proving and making known the falsehood of the asper- 
sion. But this can be done without applying to judicial courts. 

The reader will ask, What then is it proposed to do ? and, 
in furnishing a reply, I shall proceed upon the supposition 
that courts of law only exist. 

A statement injurious to a private individual is published 
to the world. He prosecutes the libeller under the most 
favourable circumstances. He can prove that it is legally a 
libel, and he can prove also that it is false. What then does 
he gain by proceeding to law ? Nothing individually, but 
that he proves the falsehood ; and this he may do more satis- 
factorily, more cheaply, and more efficiently, without a court 
of law than within it. If there are documents, or if there is 
testimony by which he can prove the falsehood, they can be 
adduced before the public without the intervention of courts, 
and juries, and pleaders. Besides, the verdict of law upon 
such cases is habitually received with a sort of suspicion and 
want of confidence in its foundation ; because we know that 
verdicts are continually given against the publishers of libels 
although the libel is true. Now, in whatever degree the pub- 
lic doubts respecting the absolute falsehood of the libel, in 
the same degree the great private object of prosecuting the 
libeller is frustrated. The same evidence of falsehood ad- 
duced without the intervention of law, would be much more 
effectual, because it would be exempted from the same suspi- 
cion. — I put other motives to prosecution, such as a regard to 



416 



PROPER SUBJECTS OF 



[ESSAY HI. 



the public, out of the question because these are not often the 
motives which operate. In such matters men usually act not 
from public but from private views. 

But the prosecutor's circumstances may be less favourable. 
Suppose the statement, however injurious, is not legally a 
libel. Then whatever evidence he produces, the verdict is 
against him, and the public, who do not trouble themselves 
with nice distinctions, perhaps think that the imputation upon 
his character is deserved. Again, it may be a libel, and yet 
he may fail of producing legal proof. The most mortifying 
and insignificant deficiencies in proof disappoint all his hopes. 
The publication of a libel which all the world has seen, and 
of which every body knows the publisher, does not admit 
perhaps of legal proof. No man can be brought forward 
who has seen, with his own eyes, that a certain man did 
publish it. And here again the prosecutor obtains no redress. 
But further. — Many public statements are libellous, and are 
cruelly injurious to the sufferer, which, nevertheless, are true. 
To prosecute these statements is worse than merely vain. 
You only extend further and wider the reproach which was 
confined within narrower limits before. You make the evil 
to yourself more intense as well as more extended ; for the 
prosecuted party will no doubt take care to bring proof of the 
truth of his statements. Thus the scandal which was accepted 
with doubt, and by a few, previous to the trial, is accepted 
with certainty and by a multitude afterwards. 

What then is to be done ? Is every man to be at liberty to 
say with impunity whatever he pleases, true or false, against 
other men 1 Not with impunity ; but with impunity from the 
law. That this legal impunity may be productive of some 
evils is undoubtedly true. But the question is not whether 
evils exist, but whether they can be remedied. — Let us suppose, 
then, that there was no such thing as libel law. I think it 
probable that if these laws were repealed to-morrow, the press 
would quickly inundate the public with torrents of vilification 
and slander. The malignity of bad men would, for a while, 
prevent them from perceiving the alteration which awaited 
the public habits. They would think that an aspersion would 
continue to have the same effect in practically injuring and 
blackening the characters of others, as it has now, that it is 
comparatively unfrequent from the restraints of law. But what 
would be the result ? Inevitably this ; tkat the public would 
very quickly regard libels as they regard all other common 
things, with heedless indifference. They would not seize upon 
them as they now do with a vicious avidity. Published slander 



CHAP. XI.] 



PENAL ANIMADVERSION. 



417 



would become to the public, what the abuse of fishwomen is 
to the inhabitants of Billingsgate, a thing which they do not 
regard — a thing about which they do not trouble themselves 
to consider whether the mutual vilifications be true or false, 
and for which they scarcely think either the wors*e or the 
better of the quarrellers. With respect to published slander, 
such a state of things could not last. Private malignity would 
often die for want of food. It would not publish the asper- 
sion which when published, no one would regard, and the 
flood of vituperation would soon subside. 

But, suppose, for a moment, that the contrary were possible. 
What would then happen ? Why, the public would habituate 
themselves to discrimination. They would not, they could 
not, accept every libel as true : and in general they would ac- 
cept none as true of which the truth was not proved. Here 
again the desire of virtue would be in a great degree fulfilled ; 
for we need not trouble ourselves to repress libels by which 
no man's mind is influenced. In all suppositions, too, the 
proper means of redress are in the sufferer's power — to ad- 
duce proof of the falsehood and malignity of the assertion. 
And this is not only the greatest object to himself, but it would 
also be a positive punishment to the slanderer, whilst the cus- 
tom would become a terror to other promulgators of slander. 
What punishment is so likely to be influential as to be 
proved to be a malicious and lying vilifier of innocent men ? 
What motive so powerful to prevent this vilification, as the 
knowledge that this proof would be laid before the public 1 

If an innocent person, whose character had been in this 
manner publicly aspersed, should ask what I would advise 
him to do ? — I should say — Think nothing of law : go to those 
persons who have the means of testifying the falsehood of the 
aspersion ; procure their explicit and attested allegations ; or, 
if by any other means your innocence can be shown — avail 
yourself of them, and forthwith lay your exculpation before 
the public. Here the great end is attained. Your character 
is not injured ; and as to the slanderer, he is punished by being 
made the subject of public reprobation and disgust. A few 
days previous to that on which I write, a wide extended daily 
newspaper published some insinuations against the character 
of a gentleman eminent in society. What was done ? Why, 
the same day or the next, a nobleman who happened to know 
the truth, and whose word no one would dispute, sent a note 
to another paper saying, the insinuation was unfounded. Was 
not every object then attained ? Would this gentleman have 
been further benefited by prosecuting the editor ? or could 



418 



PROPER SUBJECTS OF 



[ESSAY III. 



this editor have been more appropriately punished than by 
this exposure of his malignity ? 

But it will be said, that there do not exist the means of dis- 
proving some aspersions, however false. This is correct ; 
but whaf is to be done 1 If the sufferer cannot disprove it in 
a newspaper or pamphlet, neither can he in a court of law : 
and unless it is disproved, a prosecution, besides procuring 
little or no redress, publishes the aspersion to a tenfold number. 
Yet such a person may demand proof of the slanderer, and 
require that he come forward. This, and such things, may 
be done in a manner that so indicates integrity and innocence, 
that in failure of a justification of the slander it would recoil 
upon the author. * 

The most pitiable situation is that of a person, now perhaps 
virtuous and good, who is charged with some of the crimes 
or vices of which he was actually guilty in past times. Here 
the libel cannot be repelled, for it is true. To invite investi- 
gation is to publish and deepen the slander. It must therefore 
be borne : a painful alternative but unavoidable ; and he who 
endures it will, perhaps, if he be now a Christian, regard it with 
humility, as a not unjust retribution of his former sins. 

But to allow the unrestrained publication of facts or false- 
hood, is not a matter purely evil. The statutes which prevent 
men from publishing libels, prevent them also from publishing 
truths — truths which all men ought to hear. There are some 
actions which can in no other way be punished or discounte- 
nanced than by exposing them to the public reprobation. I 
saw the other day, in a newspaper, (I think these popular 
references much to the purpose,) a narrative of the gross cru- 
elty of some gentleman to his horse, by which a large part of 
the animal's tongue had been cut or torn from its mouth. The 
narrator said he was afraid to mention this man's name on 
account of the libel laws. Suppose the statement to have 
been true, and the name to have been made public ; would it 
not have been a proper and a severe punishment for the inhu- 
manity ? Would it not have deterred others from such inhu- 
manity ? In a word, ought not such charges to be published ? — 
And thus it would be with a multitude of other offences, for 
which scarcely any punishment is so effectual as the repro- 
bation of the public. " There is no terror that comes home 
to the heart of vice, like the terror of being exhibited to the 
public eye." I am willing to acknowledge, that if the publi- 
cation of many species of vicious conduct was more frequent — 
so frequent as to be habitual, it would eventually tend to the 
extension of private and of public virtue. Men who were in 



CHAP. XI.] 



PENAL ANIMADVERSION. 



419 



any way ill-disposed, would find themselves under a constant 
apprehension of exposure, from which almost no vigilance 
could secure an escape. The writer from whom I have quoted 
the sentence above holds much stronger language than mine. 
" If truth," says he, " were universally told of men's dispo- 
sitions and actions, gibbets and wheels might be dismissed 
from the face of the earth. The knave unmasked would be 
obliged to turn honest in his own defence. Nay, no man 
would have time to grow a knave. Truth would follow him 
in his first irresolute essays, and public disapprobation arrest 
him in the commencement of his career."* All this is not 
now to be hoped : yet when men knew that the exposure of 
their misdeeds was in the uncontrollable power of the press, 
and that there were no means of securing themselves from its 
punishment but by being virtuous, would not they be more 
anxious to practise virtue ? Would not the dread of exposure 
operate upon some of the unpunished vices of private life, as 
the dread of public opinion operates upon more public vices 
now ? The restraining power of public opinion we know is 
great : — -by dispensing with libel laws we should extend that 
power. 

Finally, the repeal of these laws would be attended with 
one of two consequences. If the consequence was, that these 
publications were not increased in number, no evil could be 
done. If they were increased, and greatly increased in num- 
ber, the public would soon learn to discriminate. Tales are 
believed now, because they are seldom told, and the public 
discrimination is not sufficiently habituated to distinguish the 
false from the true. If it were, the true- only would pass cur- 
rent. These often ought to pass ; and as to the false — who 
would publish what no one would believe ? f 

Publications- to the discredit of government or of its officers, 
assume a different character ; but thj3 difference appears to be 
such as still more strongly to argue against visiting them with 
legal penalties. Charles James Fox remarked upon this dif- 
ference. He thought however that private libels, some of the 
true as well as the false, might rightly be punished by the 
state ; but " in questions relating to public men," says he, 

* Godwin : Enq. Pol. Just. v. 2. p. 643. 

t I learn from a book which professes to give information respecting 
(i Society and Manners in High and Low Life," that there existed .'and 
perhaps there still exists) a House of Call in London, where he who had 
malice without ability might bespeak a libel upon any subject. The 
price was seven and sixpence. In a few hours he might hear the scandal, 
if such was his order, sung about the streets. — Such a fact may well af- 
fect our resolution to punish libellers by the grave power of the law. 



420 



PROPER SUBJECTS OF 



[ESSAY III. 



" verity in respect of public measures ought to be regarded as 
a complete justification of a libel."* Whether truth be a. jus- 
tification of a political libel — is one question, Whether such a 
libel ought to be punished by the law — is another. But I 
think that no statement, respecting public measures ought to 
be punished by the law — for this simple reason amongst 
others: — if the statement be true, it is commonly right that 
the truth should be publicly known ; if it be false, the mis- 
chief is better remedied by publicly showing the falsehood 
than by any other means. Surely to repel the aspersion 
upon public men, by showing that it is unfounded, is more 
consistent with the dignity of a government than to pursue the 
vituperator with fines and imprisonments. Surely this more 
dignified course would recommend the government and its 
measures to the judgments of all wise and judicious men. 

To what purpose will you prosecute a time statement. If 
a hundred men hear of it before the prosecution, ten thousand 
perhaps will hear of it afterwards. Nor is this all: for I 
scarcely know an act which can more powerfully tend to 
weaken a government, than first to act amiss, and then vin- 
dictively to pursue him who mentions the misconduct. If the 
object of a government in instituting such a prosecution be to 
strengthen its own hands, surely it pursues the object by most 
inexpedient means ; — and as to suppressing truth by the mere 
influence of terror, it is a mode of governing for which no 
man in this country ought to lift his voice. 

A very serious point in addition is this — that almost all 
political libels, whether true or false, are countenanced by a 
party. A prosecution, therefore, however seemingly success- 
ful, is sometimes totally defeated, because the party recom- 
penses the victim for his sufferings or his losses. The pro- 
secution and those who conduct it become the laughing-stock 
of the party. In the days of Pitt, a person published a libel 
which that statesman declared in the House of Commons to 
be " the most infamous collection of sedition and treason that 
ever was published."! The man was prosecuted, found guilty, 
and sentenced to some imprisonment. What was the result ? 
Why, the party made a subscription for him to the amount, it 
was said, of four thousand pounds. What bad man would not 
publish a libel to be so paid ? What discreet government 
would prosecute a libel to be so defeated. 

But if the uses of a free statement of the truth be so great 
in the case of private persons, much more is it desirable in 
the case of political affairs. To discuss, and, if needful, tem- 
* Fell's Memoirs. t Gifford's Life. 



CHAP. XI.] 



PENAL ANIMADVERSION. 



421 



perately to animadvert upon the conduct of governments, is 
the proper business of the public. How else shall the judg- 
ment of a people be called forth and expressed ? How else 
shall they induce an amendment in public measures ? Tke 
very circumstance that government is above the customary 
control of the laws, is a good reason for allowing the people 
freely to deliver their sentiments upon its conduct. Many ill 
actions of the private man may be punished by the law ; but 
how shall the ill actions of public persons be discountenanced 
if it be not by the expression of the public mind 1 A people 
have sometimes no other means of promoting reformations in 
the conduct of government, than by exposing those parts in. 
which reformation is needed. The argument then is short. — 
To prosecute false political libels is unreasonable, for there 
are better and wiser means of procedure. To prosecute true 
statements is wrong, because truth ought to be freely told ; 
and if it were not wrong, it would be absurd, because a gov- 
ernment inflicts more injury upon itself by the prosecution 
than was inflicted by the statement itself. 

As the subject maligned rises in dignity, we are presented 
with stronger and still stronger dissuasions to the legal prose- 
cution of the maligner. There are more reasons against prose- 
cuting a political than a private aspersion : there are more 
reasons against prosecuting aspersions upon religion than 
either. — Supposing, which we must suppose, that religion is 
true, then all libels upon it must be false : and, like other 
false libels, are better met by proving the truth than by punish- 
ing the liar. " Christianity is but ill defended," says Paley, 
" by refusing audience or toleration to the objections of unbe- 
lievers."* It is a scandal to religion to prosecute the man 
who makes objections to its truths : for what is the inference 
in the objector's mind but this, that we resort to force because 
we cannot produce arguments ? Nor let me be misinterpreted 
if I ask, What is Christianity, or who shall define it ? I may 
be of opinion, and in fact I am of opinion, that some of the 
doctrines which the professors of Christianity promulgate, are 
as much opposed to Christianity as some of the arguments 
of unbelievers. But this is not a good reason for making my 
judgment the standard of Truth. Yet, without a standard, 
how shall we prosecute him who impugns Christianity 1 How, 
rather, shall we know whether he impugns Christianity or 
something else ? 

Truth is an overmatch for falsehood. Where they are al- 
* Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 5, c. 9. 
36 



422 



PROPER SUBJECTS OF 



[essay 



lowed fairly to conflict, truth is sure of the victory. Who then 
would rob her of the victory by silencing falsehood by force ? 
It is by such contests that the cause of truth is promoted. 
"She assailant calls forth defenders ; and it has in fact hap- 
pened, that the proofs and practical authority of religion have 
been strengthened by defences which, but for the assaults of 
error, might never have been made or sought. 

If it be said that fair argument, however unsound, may be 
tolerated, and that you only mean to punish the authors of 
reproachful and scandalous attacks upon religion — we answer, 
that these attacks, like every other, are better repelled by ex- 
posure or by neglect than by force. You can scarcely prose- 
cute these bad men (so experience teaches) without making 
them cry out about persecution, and without calling around 
them a party who might otherwise have held their peace. 
They exclaim, " The sufferer believed what he wrote, and 
thought that to publish it was for the general good !" All this 
may be false, but it is specious. At any rate you cannot dis- 
prove it. Sympathy for the man induces sympathy for his 
principles. — Another way in which a prosecution defeats its 
proper object is, that to prosecute a writing, whether scandal- 
ous or only false, is a sure way of making the book read. 
Thousands enquire for a profligate book because they hear it 
is of so much importance as to be prosecuted, who else would 
not have enquired because they would not have heard of it. 
So it was about forty years ago with Paine's Works. What, 
says gaping curiosity, can this book be, which ministers and 
bishops are so anxious that we should not read ? Multitudes 
have read the profligate later works of the unhappy Lord 
Byron, but probably unnumbered multitudes more would have 
read them, if they had been prosecuted by the Attorney Gen- 
eral and burnt by the hangman. As it is, it may be hoped they 
will sink into oblivion by the weight of their own obscene 
profaneness.* 

One objection applies to nearly all prosecutions of books — 
that it is almost impossible to restrain the licentiousness of 

* This man affords an instance of that strange detraction from our 
own reputation with posterity to which we have before referred. He cer- 
tainly wished that " dull oblivion" should not 

- (l bar 

His name from out the temple where the dead 
Are honour'd by the nations." — 
How preposterous, then, to be the suicide of so large a portion of his 
hopes, by writing what experience might teach him the nations would 
not honour ! 



CHAP. XI.] 



PENAL ANIMADVERSION. 



the press without diminishing its wholesome freedom. The 
boundaries of freedom and licentiousness cannot be defined 
by law. No law can be devised which shall at once exclude 
the evil and permit the good. Now to restrain the freedom 
of the press is amongst the greatest mischiefs which can be 
inflicted on mankind. The reader will be prepared to ac- 
' knowledge the magnitude of the mischief, if he considers how 
powerful and how proper an agent public opinion is in pro- 
moting social and political reformations. There is no agent 
of reformation so desirable as the quiet influence of the public 
judgment ; and, in order to make this judgment sound and 
powerful, the press should be free. 

The general conclusion that is suggested by the present 
chapter, is what the intelligent and Christian reader might 
expect — that the legislator should endeavour, so far as from 
time to time becomes practicable, to direct penal animadver- 
sion to those actions which are prohibited by the Moral Law 
that he should endeavour this, both by addition and deduction ; 
by ceasing to punish that which morality does not condemn, 
and by extending punishment to more of those actions which 
it does condemn. 

As to the seeming exception in the case of libels, we do not 
contend so much for their impunity, as that the law is not the 
best means of punishment. By taking the care of restraining 
this offence from the law, and placing it in the hands of the 
public, the punishment would sometimes be not only more ef- 
fectual but more severe. 



CHAPTER XII. 

OF THE PROPER ENDS OF PUNISHMENT. 

The three Objects of Punishment : — Reformation of the Offender : — Ex- 
ample : — Restitution — Punishment may be increased as well as dimin- 
ished. 

Why is a man who commits an offence punished for the 
act? Is it for his own advantage, or for that of others, or for 



424 



THE PROPER ENDS OF PUNISHMENT. [ESSAY III. 



both ? — For both, and primarily for his own :* which answer 
will perhaps the more readily recommend itself, if it can be 
shown that the good of others, that is, of the public, is best 
consulted by those systems of punishment which are most 
effectual in benefiting the offender himself. 

"When we recur to the precepts and the spirit of Chris- 
tianity, we find that the one great pervading principle by which 
it requires us to regulate our conduct towards others, is of 
that operative, practical good-will — that good-will which, if 
they be in suffering, will prompt us to alleviate the misery, 
if they be vicious, will prompt us to reclaim them from vice. 
That the misconduct of the individual exempts us from the 
obligation to regard this rule, it would be futile to imagine. 
It is by him that the exercise of benevolence is peculiarly 
needed. He is the morally sick, who needs the physician ; 
and such a physician he, who by comparison is morally whole, 
should be. If we adopt the spirit of the declaration, " I came 
not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance," we shall 
entertain no doubt that the reformation of offenders is the 
primary business of the Christian in devising punishments. 
There appears no reason why, in the case of public criminals, 
the spirit of the rule should not be acted upon — " If a brother 
be overtaken in a fault restore such an one." Amongst the 
Corinthians there was an individual who had committed a 
gross offence, such as is now punished by the law of England. 
Of this criminal Paul speaks in strong terms of reprobation 
in the first epistle. The effect proved to be good ; and the 
offender having apparently become reformed, the Corinthians' 
were directed in the second epistle, to forgive and to comfort 
him. 

When therefore a person has committed a crime, the great 
duty of those who in common with himself are candidates for 
the mercy of God, is to endeavour to meliorate and rectify 
the dispositions in which his crime originates; to subdue 
the vehemence of his passions — to raise up in his mind a 
power that may counteract the power of future temptation. 
We should feel towards these mentally diseased, as we feel 
towards the physical sufferer — compassion ; and the great 
object should be to cure the disease. No doubt, in endeav- 
ouring this object, severe remedies must often be employed. 
It is just what we should expect ; and the remedies will prob- 

* " The end of ail correction is either the amendment of wicked men 
or to prevent the influence of ill example.'"' This is the rule of Seneca ; 
and by mentioning amendment first, he appears to have regarded it as 
the primary object 



CHAP. XII.] THE PROPER ENDS OF PUNISHMENT. 



425 



ably be severe in proportion to the inveteracy and malignity 
of the complaint. But still the end should never be forgotten, 
and I think a just estimate of our moral obligations, will lead 
us to regard the attainment of that end as paramount to every 
other. 

There is one great practical advantage in directing the at- 
tention especially to this moral cure, which is this, that if it 
be successful, it prevents the offender from offending again, 
it is well known that the proportion of those who, having once 
suffered the stated punishment, again transgress the laws and 
are. again convicted, is great. But to whatever extent reforma- 
tion was attained, this unhappy result would be prevented. 

The second object of punishment, that of example, appears 
to be recognised as right by Christianity, when it says that 
the magistrate is a " terror" to bad men ; and when it admon- 
ishes such to be " afraid" of his power. There can be no 
reason for speaking of punishment as a terror, unless it were 
right to adopt such punishments as would deter. In the pri- 
vate discipline of the church the same idea is kept in view : 
■ — Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may 
fear."* The parallel of physical disease may also still hold. 
The offender is a member of the social body ; and the physi- 
cian who endeavours to remove a local disease, always acts 
with a reference to the health of the system. 

In stating reformation as the first object, we also conclude, 
that if, in any case, the attainment of reformation and the ex- 
hibition of example should be found to be incompatible, the 
former is to be preferred. I $ay if; for it is by no means 
certain that such cases will ever arise. The measures which 
are necessary to reformation must operate as example ; and 
in general, since the reformation of the more hardened offend- 
ers is not to be expected, except by severe measures, the in- 
fluence of terror in endeavouring reformation will increase 
with the malignity of the crime. This is just what we need, 
and what the penal legislator is so solicitous to secure. The 
point for the exercise of wisdom is, to attain the second object 
in attaining the first. A primary regard to the first object is 
compatible with many modifications of punishment, in order 
more effectually to attain the second. If there are two meas- 
ures, of which both tend alike to reformation, and one tends 
most to operate as example, that one should unquestionably 
be preferred. 

There is a third object which, though subordinate to the 
others, might perhaps still obtain greater notice from the legis- 
* 1 Tim. v. 20. 
36* 



426 THE PROPER ENDS OF PUNISHMENT. [ESSAY III. 

• 

lator than it is wont to do — Restitution or Compensation.* 
Since what are called criminal actions are commonly injuries 
committed by one man upon another, it appears to be a very 
obvious dictate of reason that the injury should be repaired ; 
— that he from whom the thief steals a purse should regain 
its value ; that he who is injured in his person or otherwise, 
should receive such compensation as he may. When my 
house is broken into and a hundred pounds' worth of property 
is carried off, it is but an imperfect satisfaction to me that the 
robber will be punished. I ought to recover the value of my 
property. The magistrate, in taking care of the general, 
should take care of the individual weal. The laws of England 
do now award compensation in damages for some injuries. 
This is a recognition of the principle ; although it is remark- 
able, not only that the number of offences which are thus pun- 
ished is small, but that they are frequently of a sort in which 
pecuniary loss has not been sustained by the injured party. 

I do not imagine that in the present state of penal law, or of 
the administration of justice, a general regard to commpensa- 
tion is practicable, but this does not prove that it ought not to 
be regarded. If in an improved state of penal affairs, it 
should be found practicable to oblige offenders to recompense 
by their labour those who had suffered by their crime, this 
advantage would attend, that while it wouid probably involve 
considerable punishment, it would approve itself to the offend- 
er's mind as the demand of reason and of justice. This is 
no trifling consideration ; for in every species of coercion and 
punishment, public or domestic, it is of consequence that the 
punished party should feel the justice and propriety of the 
measures which are adopted. 

The writer of these Essays would be amongst the last to 
reprobate a strict adherence to abstract principles, as such ; 
but some men, in their zeal for such principles, have proposed 
strange doctrines upon the subject of punishment. It has 
been said that when a crime has been committed ifc cannot be 
recalled ; that it is a " past and irrevocable action," and that 
to inflict pain upon the criminal because he has committed it, 
" is one of the wildest conceptions of untutored barbarism." 
No one perhaps would affirm that, in strictness, such a motive 
to punishment is right ; but how, when an offence is commit- 

* " The law of nature commands that reparation be made." Mor. 
and Pol. Phil. b. 6, c. 8. And this dictate of nature appears to have been 
recognized in the Mosaic law, in which compensation to the suffering 
party is expressly required. 



CHAP. XII.] THE PROPER ENDS OF PUNISHMENT. 



427 



ted, can you separate the objects of punishment so as not 
practically to punish because the man has offended ? If you 
regulate the punishment by its legitimate objects, you punish 
because the offender needs it ; and as all offenders do need it, 
you punish all, which amounts in practice to nearly the same 
thing as punishing because they have committed a crime. 
However, as an abstract principle, there might be little oc- 
casion to dispute about it ; but when it is made a foundation 
for such doctrine as the following, it is needful to recall the 
supreme authority of the Moral Law : " We are bound, under 
certain urgent circumstances, to deprive the offender of the 
liberty he has abused. Further than this, no circumstance 
can authorize us. The infliction of further evil, when his 
power to injure is removed, is the wild and unauthorized dic- 
tate of vengeance and rage." This is affirmative ; and in 
turn I would affirm that it is the sober and authorized dictate 
of justice and good-will. But. indeed why may we even 
restrain him ? Obviously for the sake of others ; and for the 
sake of others we may also do more. Besides, this philoso- 
phy leaves the offender's reformation out of the question. If 
he is so wicked that you are obliged to confine him lest 
he should commit violence again, he is so wicked that 
you are obliged to confine him for his own good. And, in re- 
ality, the writer himself had just before virtually disproved 
his own position. " Whatever gentleness," he says, " the 
intellectual physician may display, it is not to be believed 
that men can part with rooted habits of injustice and vice 
without the sensation of considerable pain."* But, to occasion 
this pain in order to make them part with vicious habits is to 
do something " further" than to take away liberty. 

Respecting the relative utility of different modes of punish- 
ment and of prison discipline, we have little to say, partly 
because the practical recognition of reformation as a primary 
object affords good security for the adoption of judicious 
measures, and partly because these topics have already ob- 
tained much of the public attention. One suggestion may, 
however, be made, that as good consequences have followed 
from making a prisoner's confinement depend for its duration 
on his conduct, so that if it be exemplary the period is dimin- 
ished, there appears no sufficient reason why the parallel 
system should not be adopted of increasing the original sen- 
tence if his conduct continue vicious. There is no breach of 
reason or of justice in this. For the reasonable object of pun- 
* Godwin : Enq. Pol. Just. v. ii. p. 748, 751. 



428 



PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. 



[ESSAY III. 



isliment is to attain certain ends, and if, by the original sen- 
tence, it is found that these ends are not attained, reason ap- 
pears to dictate that stronger motives should be employed. — 
It cannot surely be less reasonable to add to a culprit's penal- 
ty if his conduct be bad, than to deduct from it if it be good. 
For a sentence should not be considered as a propitiation of 
the law, nor when it is inflicted should it be considered, as of 
necessity, that all is done. The sentence which the law 
pronounces is a general rule — good perhaps as a general rule, 
but sometimes inadequate to its end. And the utility of re- 
taining the power of adding to a penalty is the same in kind, 
and probably greater in degree, than the power of diminishing 
it. In one case the culprit is influenced by hope, and in the 
other by fear. Fear is the more powerful agent upon some 
men's minds, and hope upon others. And as to the justice of 
such an institution, it appears easily to be vindicated ; for 
what is the standard of justice 1 The sentence of the law ? 
No ; for if it were, it would be unjust to abate of it as well as 
to add. Is it the original crime of the offender % No ; for if 
it were, the same crime, by whatever variety of conduct it 
was afterwards followed, must always receive an equal pen- 
alty. The standard of justice is to be estimated by the ends 
for which punishments are inflicted. Now, although it would 
be too much to affirm that any penalty, or duration of penalty, 
would be just until these ends were attained, yet surely it is 
not unjust to endeavour their attainment by some additions to 
an original penalty when they cannot be attained without. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

♦ PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. 

Of the three objects of punishment, the punishment of death regards but 
one — Reformation of minor offenders: Greater criminals neglected — 
Capital punishments* not efficient as examples — Public executions — 
Paul — Grotius — Murder — The punishment of death irrevocable — Rous- 
seau — Recapitulation. 

I select for observation this peculiar mode of punishment 
on account of its peculiar importance. 

And here we are impressed at the outset with the consid- 



CHAP. XIII. 



PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. 



429 



eration, that of the three great objects which have just been 
proposed as the proper ends of punishment, the punishment 
of death regards but one ; and that one not the first and the 
greatest. The only end which is consulted in taking the life 
of an offender, is that of example to other men. His own 
reformation is put almost out of the question. Now if the 
principles delivered in the preceding chapter be sound, they 
present at once an almost insuperable objection to the punish- 
ment of death. If reformation be the primary object, and 
if the punishment of death precludes attention to that object, 
the punishment of death is wrong. 

To take the life of a fellow-creature is to exert the utmost 
possible power which man can possess over man. It is to 
perform an action the most serious and awful which a hu- 
man being can perform. Respecting such an action, then, 
can any truth be more manifest than that the dictates of 
Christianity ought especially to be taken into account ? If 
these dictates are rightly urged upon us in the minor concerns 
of life, can any man doubt whether they ought to influence us 
in the greatest ? Yet what is the fact ? Why, that in de- 
fending capital punishments, these dictates are almost placed 
out of the question. We hear a great deal about security of 
property and life, a great deal about the necessity of making 
examples ; but almost nothing about the Moral Law. It 
might be imagined that upon this subject our religion imposed 
no obligations ; for nearly every argument that is urged in fa- 
vour of capital punishments would be as valid and as appro- 
priate in the mouth of a Pagan as in our own. Can this 
be right ? Is it conceivable that, in the exercise of the most 
tremendous agency which is in the power of man, it can be 
right to exclude all reference to the expressed will of God ? 

I acknowledge that this exclusion of the Christian law from 
the defences of the punishment, is to me almost a conclusive 
argument that the punishment is wrong. Nothing that is 
right, can need such an exclusion ; and we should not practise 
it if it were not for a secret perception, that to apply the pure 
requisitions of Christianity would not serve the purpose of 
the advocate. Look for a moment upon the capital offender 
and upon ourselves. He, a depraved and deep violator of 
the law of God — one who is obnoxious to the vengeance 
of heaven — one, however, whom Christ came peculiarly to 
call to repentance and to save — Ourselves, his brethren — 
brethren by the relationship of nature — brethren in some 
degree in offences against God — brethren especially in the 
trembling hope of a common salvation. How ought beings so 



430 



PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. 



[essay HI. 



situated to act towards one another ? Ought we to kill or to 
amend him ? Ought we, so far as is in our power, to cut off 
his future hope, or, so far as is in our power, to strengthen the 
foundation of that hope ? Is it the reasonable or decent of- 
fice of one candidate for the mercy of God to hang his 
fellow-candidate upon a gibbet ? I am serious, though men 
of levity may laugh. If such men reject Christianity, I do 
not address them. If they admit its truth, let them manfully 
show that its principles should not thus be applied. 

No one disputes that the reformation of offenders is desira- 
ble, though some may not allow it to be the primary object. 
For the purposes of reformation we have recourse to constant 
oversight — to classification of offenders — to regulate labour — 
to religious instruction. For whom? For minor criminals. 
Do not the greater criminals need reformation too ? If all 
these endeavours are necessary to effect the amendment of 
the less depraved, are they not necessary to affect the amend- 
ment of the more ? But we stop just where our exertions are 
most needed ; as if the reformation of a bad man was of the 
less consequence as the intensity of his wickedness became 
greater. If prison discipline and a penitentiary be needful 
for sharpers and pickpockets, surely they are necessary 
for murderers and highwaymen. Yet we reform the one and 
hang the other ! 

Since, then, so much is sacrificed to extend the terror 
of example, we ought to be indisputably certain that the ter- 
ror of capital punishment is greater than that of all others. — 
We ought not certainly to sacrifice the requisitions of the 
Christian law unless we know that a regard to them would be 
attended with public evil.* Do we know this ? Are we 
indisputably certain that capital punishments are more effi- 
cient as examples than any others 1 We are not. We do 
not know from experience, and we cannot know without it. — 
In England the experiment has not been made. The punish- 
ment therefore is wrong in us, whatever it might be in a more 
experienced people. For it is wrong unless it can be shown 
to be right. It is not a neutral affair. If it is not indispen- ■ 
sably necessary, it is unwarrantable. And since we do not 
know that it is indispensable, it is, so far as we are concerned, 
unwarrantable. 

And with respect to the experience of other nations, who 
will affirm that crimes have been increased in consequence of 
the diminished frequency of executions ? Who will affirm 

* We ought not for any reason to do this ; but I speak in the present 
paragraph -of the pretensions of expediency. 



CHAP. XIII.] PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. 



431 



that the laws and punishments of America are not as effectual 
as our own ? Yet they have abolished capital punishment for 
all private crimes except murder of the first degree. Where, 
then, is our pretension to a justification of our own practice ? 
It is a satisfaction that so many facts and arguments are be- 
fore the public which show the inefficacy of the punishment 
of death in this country ; and this is one reason why they are 
not introduced here. " There are no practical despisers 
of death like those who touch, and taste, and handle death 
daily, by daily committing capital offences. They make a 
jest of death in all its forms ; and all its terrors are in their 
mouths a scorn." * " Profligate criminals, such as common 
thieves and highwaymen," "have always been accustomed to 
look upon the gibbet as a lot very likely to fall to them. 
When it does fall to them therefore, they consider themselves 
only as not quite so lucky as some of their companions, 
and submit to their fortune without any other uneasiness than 
what may arise from the fear of death — a fear which even, by 
such worthless wretches, we frequently see can be so easily 
and so very completely conquered." A man some time ago 
was executed for uttering forged bank-notes, and the body 
was delivered to his friends. What was the effect of the ex- 
ample upon them? Wiry, with the corpse lying on a bed be- 
fore them, they were themselves seized in the act of again 
uttering forged bank-notes. The testimony upon a subject 
like this, of a person who has had probably greater and better 
opportunities of ascertaining the practical efficiency of pun- 
ishments than any other individual in Europe, is of great im- 
portance. " Capital convicts," says Elizabeth Fry, " pacify 
their conscience with the dangerous and most fallacious 
notion, that the violent death which awaits them will serve as 
a full atonement for all their sins." f It is their passport to 
felicity — the purchase-money of heaven ! Of this deplorable 
notion the effect is doubly bad. First, it makes them compara- 
tively little afraid of death, because they necessarily regard it 
as so much less an evil ; and, secondly, it encourages them 
to go on in the commission of crimes, because they imagine 
that the number or enormity of them, however great, will not 
preclude them from admission into heaven. Of both these 
mischiefs, the punishment of death is the immediate source. 
Substitute another punishment, and they will not think that 
that is -an "atonement for their sins," and will not receive 
their present encouragement to continue their crimes. But 

* living's Orations. t Observations on the visiting, &c., of 

Female Prisoners, p. 73. 



432 PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. [ESSAY III. 

with respect to example, this unexceptionable authority speaks 
in decided language. " The terror of example is very gener- 
ally rendered abortive by the predestinarian notion, vulgarly 
prevalent among thieves, that ' if they are to be hanged they 
are to be hanged, and nothing can prevent it.' "* It may be 
said that the same notion might be attached to any other pun- 
ishment, and that thus that other would become abortive ; but 
there is little reason to expect this, at least in the same de- 
gree. Trhe notion is now connected expressly with hanging, 
and it is not probable that the same notion would ever be 
transferred with equal power to another penalty. Where 
then is the overwhelming evidence of utility, which alone, 
even in the estimate of expediency, can justify the punish- 
ment of death? It cannot be adduced; it does not exist. 

But if capital punishments do little good, they do much 
harm. " The frequent public destruction of life has a fear- 
fully hardening effect upon those whom it is intended to in- 
timidate. While it excites in them the spirit of revenge, it 
seldom fails to lower their estimate of the life of man, and 
renders them less afraid of taking it away in their turn by 
acts of personal violence."! This is just what a consideration 
of the principles of the human mind would teach us to ex- 
pect. To familiarize men with the destruction of life, is to 
teach them not to abhor that destruction. It is the legitimate 
process of the mind in other things. He who blushes and 
trembles the first time he utters a lie, learns by repetition to 
do it with callous indifference. Now you execute a man in 
order to do good by the spectacle — while the practical conse- 
quence, it appears, is, that bad men turn away from the spec- 
tacle more prepared to commit violence than before. It will 
be said, that this effect is produced only upon those who are 
already profligate, and that a salutary example is held out to 
the public. But the answer is at hand — The public do not 
usually begin with capital crimes. These are committed 
after the person has become depraved — that is, after he has 
arrived at that state in which an execution will harden rather 
than deter him. We " lower their estimate of the life of man." 
It cannot be doubted. It is the inevitable tendency of exe- 
cutions. There is much of justice in an observation of Bec- 
caria's. " Is it not absurd that the laws which detect and 
punish homicide should, in order to prevent murder, publicly 
commit murder themselves V\ By the procedures of a court, 
we virtually and perhaps literally expatiate upon the sacred- 

* Observations on the visiting, &c, of Female Prisoners, p. 73. 
f Ibid. X Essay on Capital Punishments, c. 28. 



CHAP. XIII,] 



PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. 



433 



ness of human life, upon the dreadful guilt of taking it away 
— and then forthwith take it away ourselves ! It is no sub- 
ject of wonder that this " lowers the estimate of the life of 
man." The next sentence of the writer upon whose testi- 
mony I offer these comments, is of tremendous import : — 
" There is much reason to believe that our public executions 
have had a direct and positive tendency to promote both mur- 
der and suicide" " Why, if a considerable time elapse be- 
tween the trial and the execution, do we find the severity of 
the public changed into compassion ? For the same reason 
that a master, if he do not beat his slave in the moment of 
resentment, often feels a repugnance to the beating him at 
all."* This is remarkable. If executions were put off for 
a twelvemonth, I doubt whether the public would bear them. 
But why if they were just and right ? Respecting " the con- 
tempt and indignation with which every one looks on an exe- 
cutioner," Beccaria says the reason is, " that in a secret cor- 
ner of the mind, in which the original impressions of nature 
are still preserved, men discover a sentiment which tells them 
that their lives are not lawfully in the power of any one."f 
Let him who has the power of influencing the legislature of 
the country or public opinion, (and who has not ?) consider 
the responsibility which this declaration implies, if he lifts 
his voice for the punishment of death ! 

But further : the execution of one offender excites in others 
" the spirit of revenge." This is extremely natural. Many 
a soldier, I dare say, has felt impelled to revenge the death 
of his comrades ; and the member of a gang of thieves, who 
has fewer restraints of principle, is likely to. feel it too. But 
upon whom is his revenge inflicted ? Upon the legislature, 
or the jury, or the witnesses ? No, but upon the public — 
upon the first person whose life is in their power, and which 
they are prompted to take away. You execute a man, then, 
in order to save the lives of others ; and the effect is, that 
you add new inducements to take the lives of others away. 

Of a system which is thus unsound — unsound because it 
rejects some of the plainest dictates of the Moral Law — and 
unsound because so many of its effects are bad, I should be 
ready to conclude, with no other evidence, that it was utterly 
inexpedient and impolitic — that as it was bad in morals, it 
was bad in policy. And such appears to be the fact. — " It is 
incontrovertibly proved that punishments of a milder and less 

* Godwin : Enq. Pol. Just v. 2, p. 726. t Beccaria : Essay on 

Capital Punishments, chap. 28. 

37 



434 



PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. 



[ESSAY III. 



injurious nature are calculated to produce, for every good pur- 
pose, a far more powerful effect"* 

Finally. — " The best of substitutes for capital punishment 
will be found in that judicious management of criminals in 
prison which it is the object of the present tract to recom- 
mend;"! which management is Christian management — a 
system in which reformation is made the first object, but in 
which it is found that in order to effect reformation severity 
to hardened offenders is needful. Thus then we arrive at 
the goal : — we begin with urging the system that Christianity 
dictates as right ; we conclude by discovering that, as it is 
the right system, so it is practically the best. 

But an argument in favour of capital punishments has been 
raised from the Christian Scriptures themselves. — " If I be 
an offender, or have committed any thing worthy of death, I 
refuse not to die."^ This is the language of an innocent per- 
son who was persecuted by malicious enemies. It was an 
assertion of innocence ; an assertion that he had done nothing 
worthy of death. The case had no reference to the question 
of the lawfulness of capital punishment, but to the question 
of the lawfulness of inflicting it upon him. Nor can it be 
supposed that it was the design of the speaker to convey any 
sanction of the punishment itself, because the design would 
have been wholly foreign to the occasion. The argument of 
Grotius goes perhaps too far for his own purpose. " If I be 
an offender, or have done any thing worthy of death, I refuse 
not to die." He refused not to die, then, if he were an offender, 
if he had done one of the " many and grievous things" which 
the Jews charged upon him. But will it be contended that 
he meant to sanction the destruction of every person who was 
thus ft an offender ?" — His enemies were endeavouring to take 
his life, and he, in earnest asseveration of his innocence, says, 
" If you can fix your charges upon me, take it." 

Grotius adduces, as an additional evidence of the sanction 
of the punishment by Christianity, this passage, " Servants, 
be subject to your masters with all fear, &c. — What glory is 
it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it 
patiently 1 but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take 
it patiently, this is acceptable with God."§ Some arguments 
disprove the doctrine which they are advanced to support, 
and this surely is one of them. It surely cannot be true that 

* Observations on the visiting, &c, of Female Prisoners, p. 75. 
t Ibid. p. 76. f Acts, xxv. 11 ; see Grotius: Rights of War and 

Peace. § 1 Pet. ii. 18, 20. 



CHAP. XIII.] PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. 



435 



Christianity sanctions capital punishments, if this is the* best 
evidence of the sanction that can be found.* 

Some persons again suppose that there is a sort of moral 
obligation to take the life of a murderer : " Whoso sheddeth 
man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." This suppo- 
sition is an example of that want of advertence to the suprem- 
acy of the Christian morality, which in the first Essay we 
had occasion to notice. Our law is the Christian law, and 
if Christianity by its precepts or spirit prohibits the punish- 
ment of death, it cannot be made right to Christians by refer- 
ring to a commandment which was given to Noah. There 
is, in truth, some inconsistency in the reasonings of those 
who urge the passage. The fourth, fifth, and sixth verses 
of Genesis ninth, each contains a law delivered to Noah. 
Of these three laws, we habitually disregard two : how then 
can we with reason insist on the authority of the third ?f 

After all, if the command were in full force, it would not 
justify our laws ; for they shed the blood of many who have 
not shed blood themselves. 

And this conducts us to the observation, that the grounds 
upon which the United States of America still affix death to 
murder of the first degree, do not appear very clear ; for if 
other punishments are found effectual in deterring from crimes 
of all degrees of enormity up to the last, how is it shown that 
they would not be effectual in the last also ? There is nothing 
in the constitution of the human mind to indicate, that a mur- 
derer is influenced by passions which require that the coun- 
teracting power should be totally different from that which is 
employed to restrain every other crime. The difference too 
in the personal guilt of the perpetrators of some other crimes, 
and of murder, is sometimes extremely small. At any rate, 
it is not so great as to imply a necessity for a punishment 
totally dissimilar. The truth appears to be, that men enter- 
tain a sort of indistinct notion that murder is a crime which 
requires a peculiar punishment, which notion is often founded, 
not upon any process of investigation, by which the propriety 
of this peculiar punishment is discovered, but upon some ■ 
vague ideas respecting the nature of the crime itself. But 
the dictate of philosophy is, to employ that punishment which 
will be most efficacious. Efficacy is the test of its propri- 

* " Wickliffe," says Priestely, "seems to have thought it wrong to take 
away the life of a man on any account." 

t Indeed it would almost appear from Genesis ix. 5, that even accidental 
homicide was thus to be punished with death : and if so, it is wholly dis- 
regarded in our present practice. 



436 PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. [ESSAY III. 

ety and in estimating this efficacy, the character of the 
crime is a foreign consideration. Again, the dictate of 
Christianity is, to employ that punishment which, while it 
deters the spectator, reforms the man. Now, neither philoso- 
phy nor Christianity appears to be consulted in punishing 
murder with death, because it is murder. And it is worthy 
of especial remembrance, that the purpose for which Grotius 
defends the punishment of death is, that he may be able to 
defend the practice of war : — a bad foundation if this be its 
best ! 

It is one objection to capital punishment that it is abso- 
lutely irrevocable. If an innocent man suffers it is impos- 
sible to recall the sentence of the law. Not that this con- 
sideration alone is a sufficient argument against it, but it is 
one argument amongst the many. In a certain sense indeed, 
all personal punishments are irrevocable. The man who by 
a mistaken verdict has been confined twelve months in a 
prison, cannot be repossessed of the time. But if irrevoca- 
ble punishments cannot be dispensed with, they should not 
be made needlessly common, and especially those should be 
regarded with jealousy which admit of no removal or relaxa- 
tion in the event of subsequently discovered innocence, or 
subsequent reformation. It is not sufficiently considered that 
a jury or a court of justice never know that a prisoner is 
guilty. — A witness may know it who saw him commit the 
act, but others cannot know it who depend upon testimony, 
for testimony may be mistaken or false. All verdicts are 
founded upon probabilities — probabilities which, though they 
sometimes approach to certainty, never attain to it. Surely 
it is a serious thing for one man to destroy another upon 
grounds short of absolute certainty of his guilt. There is a 
sort of indecency attached to it — an assumption of a degree 
of authority which ought to be exercised only by Him whose 
knowledge is infallibly true. It is unhappily certain that 
some have been put to death for actions which they never 
committed. At one assizes, we believe, not less than six 
persons were hanged, of whom it was afterwards discovered 
that they were entirely innocent. A deplorable instance is 
given by Dr. Smollett : — " Rape and murder were perpetrated 
upon an unfortunate woman in the neighbourhood of London, 
and an innocent man suffered death for this complicated out- 
rage, while the real criminals assisted at his execution, heard 
him appeal to Heaven for his innocence, and in the character 
of friends embraced him while he stood on the brink of eter- 



CHAP. XIII.] 



PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. 



437 



nity."* Others equally innocent, but whose innocence has 
never been made known, have doubtless shared the same 
fate. These are tremendous considerations, and ought to 
make men solemnly pause before, upon grounds necessarily 
uncertain, they take away that life which God has given, and 
which they cannot restore. 

Of the merely philosophical speculations respecting the 
rectitude of capital punishments, whether affirmative or nega- 
tive, I would say little ; for they in truth deserve little. One 
advantage indeed attends a brief review — that the reader will 
perceive how little the speculations of philosophers will aid 
us in the investigation of a Christian question. 

The philosopher, however, would prove what the Christian 
cannot, and Mably accordingly says, " In the state of nature, 
I have a right to take the life of him who lifts his arm against 
mine. This right, upon entering into society, I surrender to 
the magistrate" If we conceded the truth of the first posi- 
tion, (which we do not,) the conclusion from it is an idle 
sophism ; for it is obviously preposterous to say, that because 
I have a right to take the life of a man who will kill me if I 
do not kill him, the state, which is in no such danger, has a 
right to do the same. That danger which constitutes the al- 
leged right in the individual, does not exist in the case of the 
state. The foundation of the right is gone, and where can 
be the right itself? Having, however, been thus told that 
the state has a right to kill, we are next informed, by Filan- 
gieri, that the criminal has no right to live. He says, " If I 
have a right to kill another man, he has lost his right to life."\ 
Rousseau goes a little further. He tells us, that in conse- 
quence of the " social contract " which we make with the 
sovereign on entering into society, " Life is a conditional 
grant of the state :"| so that we hold our lives, it seems, only 
as " tenants at will," and must give them up whenever their 
owner, the state requires them. The reader has probably 
hitherto thought that he retained his head by some other 
tenure. 

The right of taking an offender's life being thus proved, 
Mably shows us how its exercise becomes expedient. " A 
murderer," says he, " in taking away his enemy's life, believes 
he does him the greatest possible evil. Death, then, in the 
murderer's estimation, is the greatest of evils. By the fear 
of death, therefore, the excesses of hatred and revenge must 
be restrained." If language wilder than this can be held, 

* Hist, of Eng. v. 3, p. 318. t Montagu on Punishment of 

Death. X Contr. Soc. ii. 5, Montagu. 

37* 



438 



RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS'. [ESSAY III. 



Rousseau, I think, holds it. He says, " The preservation of 
both sides (the criminal and the state) is incompatible ; one 
of the two must perish.''' How it happens that a nation "must 
perish," if a convict is not hanged, the reader, I suppose, will 
not know. Even philosophy, however, concedes as much : 
" Asolute necessity alone," says Pastoret, " can justify the 
punishment of Death ;" and Rousseau himself acknowledges 
that " we have no right to put to death, even for the sake of ex- 
ample, any but those who cannot be permitted to live without 
danger." Beccaria limits the right to one specific case — and 
in doing this he appears to sacrifice his own principle, (de- 
duced from that splendid fiction, the " social contract,") which 
is, that " the punishment of death is not authorized by any 
right : — no such right exists." 

For myself, I perceive little value in such speculations to 
whatever conclusions they lead, for there are shorter and 
surer roads to truth ; but it is satisfactory to find that, even 
upon the principles of such philosophers, the right to put 
criminals to death is not easily made out. 

The argument, then, respecting the punishment of death, 
is both distinct and short. 

It rejects, by its very nature, a regard to the first and great- 
est object of punishment. 

It does not attain either of the other objects so well as 
they may be attained by other means. 

It is attended with numerous evils peculiarly its own. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 

The primitive church — The established church of Ireland — America — 
Advantages and disadvantages of established churches — Alliance of a 
church with the state — An established church perpetuates its own evils 
— Persecution generally the growth of religious establishments — State 
religions injurious to the civil welfare of a people — Legal provision for 
Christian teachers — Voluntary payment — Advancement in the church 
— The appointment of religious teachers. 

A large number of persons embark from Europe, and col- 
onize an uninhabited territory in the South Sea. They erect 



CHAP. XIV.] RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS, 



439 



a government — -suppose a republic — and make all persons, of 
whatever creed, eligible to the legislature. The community- 
prospers and increases. In process of time a member of the 
legislature, who is a disciple of John Wesley, persuades 
himself that it will tend to the promotion of religion that the 
preachers of methodism should be supported by a national 
tax ; that their stipends should be sufficiently ample to pre- 
vent them from necessary attention to any business but that 
of religion ; and that accordingly they shall be precluded 
from the usual pursuits of commerce and from the profes- 
sions. He proposes the measure. It is contended against 
by the episcopalian members, and the independents, and the 
catholics, and the unitarians — by all but, the adherents to his 
own creed. They insist upon the equality of civil and reli- 
gious rights, but in vain. The majority prove to be metho- 
dists ; they support the measure : the law is enacted ; and 
methodism becomes, thenceforth, the religion of the state. 
This is a Religious Establishment. 

But it is a religious establishment in its best form ; and, per- 
haps, none ever existed of which the constitution was so sim- 
ple and so pure. During one portion of the papal history, the 
Romish church was indeed not so much an " establishment" of 
the state as a separate and independent constitution. For though 
some species of alliance subsisted, yet the Romanists did not 
acknowledge, as Protestants now do, that the power of estab- 
lishing a religion resides in the state. 

In the present day other immunities are possessed by ec- 
clesiastical establishments than those which are necessary to 
constitute the institution — such, for example, as that of ex- 
clusive eligibility to the legislature : and other alliances with 
the civil power exist than that which necessarily results from 
any preference of a particular faith — such as that of placing 
ecclesiastical patronage in the hands of a government, or of 
those who are under its influence. From these circumstances 
it happens, that in enquiring into the propriety of religious 
establishments, we cannot confine ourselves to the enquiry 
whether they are proper as they usually exist. And this is 
so much the more needful, because there is little reason to 
expect that when once an ecclesiastical establishment has 
been erected — when once a particular church has been se- 
lected for the preference and patronage of the civil power — • 
that preference and patronage will be confined to those cir- 
cumstances which are necessary to the subsistence of an es- 
tablishment at all. 

It is sufficiently obvious that it matters nothing to the ex- 



440 



RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. [ESSAY III. 



istence of an established church, what the faith of that church 
is, or what is the form of its government. It is not the creed 
which constitutes the establishment, but the preference of the 
civil power ; and accordingly the reader will be pleased to 
bear in mind, that neither in this chapter nor in the next 
have we any concern with religious opinions. Our business 
is not with churches, but with church establishments. 

The actual history of religious establishments in Christian 
countries, does not differ in essence from that which we have 
supposed in the South Sea. They have been erected by the 
influence or the assistance of the civil power. In one coun- 
try a religion may have owed its political supremacy to the 
superstitions of a prince ; and in another to his policy or am- 
bition : but the effect has been similar. Whether supersti- 
tion or policy, the contrivances of a priesthood, or the fortui- 
tous predominance of a party, have given rise to the estab- 
lished church, is of comparatively little consequence to the 
fundamental principles of* the institution. 

Of the divine right of a particular church to supremacy I 
say nothing ; because none with whom I am at present con- 
cerned to argue imagine that it exists. 

The only ground upon which it appears that religious es- 
tablishments can be advocated are, first, that of example or 
approbation in the primitive churches ; and, secondly, that of 
public utility. 

I. The primitive church was not a religious establishment 
in any sense or in any degree. No establishment existed un- 
til the church had lost much of its purity. Nor is there any 
expression in the New Testament, direct or indirect, which 
would lead a reader to suppose that Christ or his apostles re- 
garded an establishment as an eligible institution. " We find, 
in his religion no scheme of building up a hierarchy, or of 
ministering to the views of human governments." — " Our reli- 
gion, as it came out of the hands of its Founder and his 
apostles, exhibited a complete abstraction from all views either 
of ecclesiastical or civil policy."* The evidence which these 
facts supply respecting the moral character of religious estab- 
lishments, whatever be its weight, tends manifestly to show 
that that character is not good. I do not say because Chris- 
tianity exhibited this " complete abstraction," that it therefore 
necessarily condemned establishments ; but I say that the bear- 
ing and the tendency of this negative testimony is against 
them. 

In the discourses and writings of the first teachers of our 
* Paley : Evidences of Christianity, p. 2, c. 2. 



CHAP. XIV.] RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 



441 



religion, we find such absolute disinterestedness, so little dis- 
position to assume political superiority, that to have become 
the members of an established church would certainly have 
been inconsistent in them. It is indeed almost inconceivable 
that they could ever have desired the patronage of the state 
for themselves or for their converts. No man conceives that 
Paul or John could have participated in the exclusion of any 
portion of the Christian church from advantages which they 
themselves enjoyed. Every man perceives that to have done 
this, would have been to assume a new character, a character 
which they had never exhibited before, and which was incon- 
gruous with their former principles and motives of action. 
But why is this incongruous with the apostolic character un- 
less it is incongruous with Christianity? Upon this single 
ground, therefore, there is reason for the sentiment of " many 
well-informed persons, that it seems extremely questionable 
whether the religion of Jesus Christ admits of any civil es- 
tablishment at all."* 

I lay stress upon these considerations. We all know that 
much may be learnt respecting human duty by a contempla- 
tion of the spirit and temper of Christianity as it was exhi- 
bited by its first teachers. When the spirit and temper is 
compared with the essential character of religious establish- 
ments, they are found to be incongruous — foreign to one an- 
other — having no natural relationship or similarity. I should 
regard such facts, in reference to any question of rectitude, 
as of great importance ; but upon a subject so intimately con- 
nected with religion itself, the importance is peculiarly great. 

II. The question of the utility of religious establishments 
is to be decided by a comparison of their advantages and 
their evils. 

Of their advantages, the first and greatest appears to be 
that they provide, or are assumed to provide, religious instruc- 
tion for the whole community. If this instruction be left by 
the state to be cared for by each Christian church as it pos- 
sesses the zeal or the means, it may be supposed that many 
districts will be destitute of any public religious instruction. 
At least the state cannot be assured before hand that every 
district will be supplied. And when it is considered how 
great is the importance of regular public worship to the virtue 
of a people, it is not to be denied, that a scheme which, by 
destroying an establishment, would make that instruction in- 
adequate or uncertain, is so far to be regarded as of question- 
able expediency. But the effect which would be produced 
* Simpson's Plea for Religion and the Sacred Writings 



442 



RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. [ESSAY III. 



by dispensing with establishments is to be estimated, so far 
as is - in our power, by facts. Now dissenters are in the situa- 
tion of separate unestablished churches. If they do not pro- 
vide for the public officers of religion voluntarily, they will 
not be provided for. Yet where is any considerable body of 
dissenters to be found who do not provide themselves with a 
chapel and a preacher ? And if those churches which are 
not established, do in fact provide public instruction, how is it 
shown that it would not be provided although there were no 
established religion in a state ? Besides, the dissenters from 
an established church provide this under peculiar disadvan- 
tages ; for after paying, in common with others, their quota to 
the state religion, they have to pay in addition to their own. 
But perhaps it will be said that dissenters from a state reli- 
gion are actuated by a zeal with which the professors of that 
religion are not ; and that the legal provision supplies the de- 
ficiency of zeal. If this be said, the enquiry imposes itself 
— How does this disproportion of zeal arise ? Why should 
dissenters be more zealous than churchmen ? What account 
can be given of the matter, but that there is something in the 
patronage of the state which induces apathy upon the church 
that it prefers ? One other account may indeed be offered — 
that to be a dissenter is to be a positive religionist, whilst to 
be a churchman is frequently only to be nothing else ; that 
an establishment embraces all who are not embraced by 
others ; and that if those whom other churches do not ex- 
clude were not cared for by the state religion, they would not 
be cared for at all. This is an argument of apparent weight, 
but the effect of reasoning is to diminish that weight. For 
what is meant by " including," by " caring for," the indifferent 
and irreligious ? An established church only offers them in- 
struction ; it does not " compel them to come in," and we 
have just seen that this offer is made by unestablished 
churches also. Who doubts whether in a district that is suf- 
ficient to fill a temple of the state religion, there would be 
found persons to offer a temple of public worship though the 
state did not compel it ? Who doubts whether this would be 
the case if the district were inhabited by dissenters 1 and if 
it would not be done supposing the inhabitants to belong to 
the state religion, the conclusion is inevitable, that there is a 
tendency to indifference resulting from the patronage of the 
state. 

Let us listen to the testimony of Archbishop Newcome. 
He speaks of Ireland, and says, " Great numbers of country 
parishes are without churches, notwithstanding the largeness 



CHAP. XIV.] RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 



443 



and frequency of parliamentary grants for building them ;" but 
meeting-houses and Romish chapels, which are built and re- 
paired with greater zeal, are in sufficient numbers about the 
country."* This is remarkable testimony indeed. That 
church which is patronised and largely assisted by the state, 
does not provide places for public worship : those churches 
which are not patronised and not assisted by the state, do pro- 
vide them, and provide them in " sufficient numbers" and 
" with greater zeal." What then becomes of the argument, 
that a church establishment is necessary in order to provide 
instruction which would not otherwise be provided ? 

Yet here one point must be conceded. It does not follow 
because one particular state religion is thus deficient, that 
none would be more exemplary. The fault may not be so 
much in religious establishments as such, as in that particular 
establishment which obtains in the instance before us. 

Kindred to the testimony of the Irish primate is the more 
cautious language of the archdeacon of Carlisle : — " I do not 
know," says he, " that it is in any degree true that the influ- 
ence of religion is the greatest where there are the fewest 
dissenters. "f This, I suppose, may lawfully be interpreted 
into positive language — that the influence of religion is the 
greatest where there are numerous dissenters. But if numer- 
ous adherents to unestablished churches be favourable to re- 
ligion, it would appear that, although there were none but un- 
established churches in a country, the influence of religion 
would be kept up. If established churches are practically 
useful to religion, what more reasonable than to expect that 
where they possessed the more exclusive operation, their 
utility would be the greatest ? Yet the contrary, it appears, is 
the fact. It may indeed be urged that it is the existence of 
a state religion which animates the zeal of the other churches, 
and that in this manner the state religion does good. To 
which it is a sufficient answer, that the benefit, if it is thus 
occasioned, is collateral and accidental, and offers no testi- 
mony in favour of establishments as such ; — and this is our 
concern. Besides, there are many sects to animate the zeal 
of one another, even though none were patronised by the state. 

To estimate the relative influence of religion in two countries 
is no easy task. Yet, I believe, if we compare its influence 
in the United States with that which it possesses in most of 
the European countries which possess state religions, it will 
be found that the balance is in favour of the community in 

* See Gisborne's Duties of Men. t Paley : Evidence of Chris- 

tianity. 



444 RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. [ESSAY III. 

which there is no established church : at any rate, the balance 
is not so much against it as to afford any evidence in favour 
of a state religion. A traveller in America has remarked, 
" There is more religion in the United States than in England, 
and more in England than in Italy. The closer the monopoly, 
the less abundant the supply."* Another traveller writes 
almost as if he had anticipated the present disquisition — " It 
has been often said, that the disinclination of the heart to re- 
ligious truth, renders a state establishment absolutely neces- 
sary for the purpose of Christianizing the country. Ireland 
and America can furnish abundant evidence of the fallacy of 
such an hypothesis. In the one country we see an ecclesi- 
astical establishment of the most costly description utterly 
inoperative in dispelling ignorance or refuting error ; in the 
other no establishment of any kind, and yet religion making 
daily and hourly progress, promoting enquiry, diffusing know- 
ledge, strengthening the weak, and mollifying the hardened."! 

In immediate connexion with this subject is the argument 
that Dr. Paley places at the head of those which he advances 
in favour of religious establishments — that the knowledge and 
profession of Christianity cannot be vpholden without a clergy 
supported by legal provision, and belonging to one sect of Chris- 
tians. \ The justness of this proposition is founded upon tlie 
necessity of research. It is said that " Christianity is an his- 
torical religion," and that the truth of its history must be in- 
vestigated ; that in order to vindicate its authority and to as- 
certain its truths, leisure and education and learning are indis- 
pensable — so that such an " order of clergy is necessary to 
perpetuate the evidences of revelation, and to interpret the 
obscurity of those ancient writings in which the religion is 
contained." To all this there is one plain objection, that 
when once the evidences of religion are adduced and made 
public, when once the obscurity of the ancient writings is in- 
terpreted, the work, so far as discovery is concerned, is done ; 
and it can hardly be imagined that an established clergy is 
necessary in perpetuity to do that which in its own nature can 
be done but once. Whatever may have been the validity of 
this argument in other times, when few but the clergy pos- 
sessed any learning, or when the evidences of religion had 
not been sought out, it possesses little validity now. These 
evidences are brought before the world in a form so clear and 
accessible to literary and good men, that, in the present state 
of society, there is little reason to fear they will be lost for 

* Hall. t Duncan's Trav. in America. 

I See Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 6 c. 10. 



CHAP. XIV.] RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 445 

• 

want of an established church. Nor is it to be forgotten that with 
respect to our own country, the best defences of Christianity 
which exist in the language, have not been the work either of 
the established clergy or of members of the established church. 
The expression, that such " an order of clergy is necessary 
to perpetuate the evidences of revelation," appears to contain 
an illusion. Evidences can in no other sense be perpetuated 
than by being again and again brought before the public. If 
this be the meaning, it belongs rather to the teaching of re- 
ligious truths than to their discovery ; but it is upon the dis- 
covery, it is upon the opportunity of research, that the argument 
is founded : and it is particularly to be noticed, that this is the 
primary argument which Paley adduces in deciding " the first 
and most fundamental question upon the subject." 

It pleases Providence to employ human agency in the vin- 
dication and diffusion of his truth ; but to employ the expres- 
sion " the knowledge and profession of Christianity" cannot 
be upholden without an established clergy, approaches to 
irreverence. Even a rejector of Christianity says, " If public 
worship be conformable to reason, reason without doubt will 
prove adequate to its vindication and support. If it be from 
God it is profanation to imagine that it stands in need of the 
alliance of the state."* And it is clearly untrue in fact ; be- 
cause, without such a clergy, it is actually upheld, and because, 
during the three first centuries, the religion subsisted and 
spread and prospered without any encouragement from the 
state. And it is remarkable, too, that the diffusion of Chris- 
tianity in our own times in Pagan nations, is effected less by 
the clergy of established churches than by others. f 

Such are amongst the principal of the direct advantages of 
religious establishments as they are urged by those who ad- 
vocate them. Some others will be noticed in enquiring into 
the opposite question of their disadvantages. 

These disadvantages respect either the institution itself — 
or religion generally — or the civil welfare of a people. 

I. The institution itself. " The single end we ought to 
propose by religious establishments is, the preservation and 
communication of religious knowledge. Every other idea, 
and every other end, that have been mixed with this, as the 
making of the church an engine, or even an ally, of the state ; 

* Godwin's Pol. Just. 2, 608. 

t In the preceding discussion, I have left out all reference to the pro- 
per qualification or appointment of Christian ministers, and have assumed 
(but without conceding) that the magistrate is at liberty to adjust those 
matters if he pleases. 

38 



446 RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. [ESSAY III. 

• 

converting it into the means of strengthening or diffusing in- 
fluence ; or regarding it as a support of regal, in opposition to 
popular forms of government ; have served only to debase the 
institution, and to introduce into it numerous corruptions and 
abuses"* This is undoubtedly true. Now, we affirm that 
this " debasement of the institution," this " introduction of 
numerous corruptions and abuses," is absolutely inseparable 
from religious establishments as they ordinarily exist; that 
wherever and whenever a state so prefers and patronizes a 
particular church, these debasements and abuses and corrup- 
tions will inevitably arise. 

" An engine or ally of the state." How will you frame — 
I will not say any religious establishment, but — any religious 
establishment that approaches to the ordinary character, with- 
out making it an engine or ally of the state I Alliance is in- 
volved in the very idea of the institution. The state selects, 
and prefers, and grants privileges to, a particular church. 
The continuance of these privileges depends upon the con- 
tinuance of the state in its present principles. If the state is 
altered, the privileges are endangered or may be swept away. 
The privileged church, therefore, is interested in supporting 
the state, in standing by it against opposition % or, which is the 
same thing, that church becomes an ally of the state. You 
cannot separate the effect from the cause. Wherever the state 
prefers and patronises one church, there will be an alliance 
between the state and that church. There may be variations 
in the strength of this alliance. The less the patronage of 
the state, the less strong the alliance will be. Or there may 
be emergencies in which the alliance is suspended by the 
influence of stronger interests ; but still the alliance, as a 
general consequence of the preference of the state, will inevi- 
tably subsist. When, therefore, Dr. Paley says, that to make 
an establishment an ally of the state is to introduce into it 
numerous corruptions and abuses, he in fact says, that to make 
an establishment at all is to introduce into a church numerous 
corruptions and abuses. 

It matters nothing what the doctrines or constitution of the 
church may be. The only point is, the alliance, and its de- 
gree. It may be episcopal, or presbyterian, or independent ; 
but wherever the degree of alliance — that is, of preference 
and patronage — is great, there the abuses and corruptions will 
be great. In this country during a part of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, independency became, in effect, the established church. 
It became of course an ally of the state ; and fought from its 
* Paley: Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 6, c. 10. 



CHAP. XIV.] RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 



447 



pulpits the battles of the state. Nor will any one, I suppose, 
deny that this alliance made independency worse than it was 
before, — that it introduced into it corruptions and abuses." 

The less strict the alliance, the fewer the corruptions that 
spring from an alliance. One state may impose a test to dis- 
tinguish the ministers of the preferred church, and leave the 
selection to the church itself : another may actually appoint 
some or all of the ministers. These differences in the close- 
ness of the alliance will produce differences in the degree of 
corruption ; but alliance and corruption in both cases there will 
be. He who receives a legal provision from the minister of t\m 
day, will lend his support to the minister of the day. He who re- 
ceives it by the operation of a general law, will lend his support 
to that politic al^ystem which is likely to perpetuate that law. 

" The means of strengthening or diffusing influence." This 
abuse of religious establishments is presupposed in the ques- 
tion of alliance. It is by the means of influence that the 
alliance is produced. There may be and there are gradations 
in the directness or flagrancy of the exercise of influence, 
but influence of some kind is inseparable from the selection 
and preference of a particular church. 

" A support of regal in opposition to popular forms of gov- 
ernment." This attendant upon religious establishments is 
accidental. An establishment will support that form, what- 
ever it be, by which it is itself supported. In one country it 
may be the ally of republicanism, in another of aristocracy, 
and in another of monarchy ; but in all it will be the ally of 
its own patron. The establishment of France supported the 
despotism of the Louises. The establishment of Spain sup- 
ports at this hour the pitiable policy of Ferdinand. So accu- 
rately is alliance maintained, that in a mixed government it 
will be found that an establishment adheres to that branch of 
the government by which its own pre-eminence is most sup- 
ported. In England the strictest alliance is between the 
church and the executive ; and accordingly, in ruptures be- 
tween the executive and legislative powers, the establishment 
has adhered to the former. There was an exception in the 
reign of James II. : but it was an exception which confirms 
the rule ; for the establishment then found or feared that its 
alliance with the regal power was about to be broken. 

Seeing, then, the debasement of a Christian church — that 
the introduction into it of corruptions and abuses, is insepar- 
able from religious establishments, what is this debasement 
and what are these abuses and corruptions ? 

Now, without entering into minute enquiry, many evils 



448 



RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. [ESSAY III. 



arise obviously from the nature of the case. Here is an in- 
troduction, into the office of the Christian ministry, of motives 
and interests, and aims, foreign to the proper business of the 
office ; and not only foreign but incongruous and discordant 
with it. Here are secular interests mixed up with the mo- 
tives of religion. Here are temptations to assume the minis- 
terial function in the church that is established, for the sake 
of its secular advantages. Here are inducements, when the 
function is assumed, to accommodate the manner of its exer- 
cise to the inclinations of the state ; to suppress, for example, 
aeme religious principles which the civil power does not wish 
to see inculcated ; to insist for the same reason with undue 
emphasis upon others ; in a word, to adjust the religious con- 
duct so as to strengthen or perpetuate the ah^ance with the 
state. It is very easy to perceive that these temptations will 
and must frequently prevail ; and wherever they do prevail, 
there the excellence and dignity of the Christian ministry are 
diminished, are depressed ; there Christianity is not exem- 
plified in its purity : there it is shorn of a portion of its 
beams. The extent of the evil will depend of course upon 
the vigour of the cause ; that is to say, the evil will be pro- 
portionate to the alliance. If a religious establishment were 
erected in which the executive power of the country ap- 
pointed all its ministers, there would, I doubt not,, ensue an 
almost universal corruption of the ministry. As an establish- 
ment recedes in its constitution from this closeness of al- 
liance, a corresponding increase of purity may be expected. 

During the reformation, and in Queen Elizabeth's time, " of 
nine thousand four hundred beneficed clergy ? (adherents to 
Papacy,) " only one hundred and seventy-seven resigned their 
preferment rather than acknowledge the Queen's supremacy,"* 
yet the Pope to them was head of the church. One particu- 
lar manner in which the establishment of a church injures the 
character of the church itself is, by the temptation which it 
holds out to equivocation or hypocrisy. It is necessary to 
the preference of the teachers of a particular sect, that there 
should be some means of discovering who belong to that sect : 
— there must be some test. Before the man who is desirous 
of undertaking the ministerial office, there are placed two 
roads, one of which conducts to those privileges which a 
state religion enjoys, and the other does not. The latter may 
be entered by all who : the former by those only who 
affirm their belief of the rectitude of some church forms or 
of some points of theology. It requires no argument to prove 
* Southey : Book of the Church, Sir Thomas More. 



CHAP. XIV.] RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 



449 



that this is to tempt men to affirm that which they do not be- 
lieve : that it is to say to the man who does not believe the 
stipulated points. Here is money for you if you will violate 
your conscience. By some the invitation will be accepted ;* 
and what is the result ? Why that, just as they are going 
publicly to insist upon the purity and sanctity of the Moral 
Law, they violate that law thems<#ves. The injury which is 
thus done to a Christian church by establishing it, is negative 
as well as positive. You not only tempt some men to equiv- 
ocation or hypocrisy, but exclude from the office others of 
sounder integrity. Two persons, both of whom do not as- 
sent to the prescribed points, are desirous of entering the 
church. One is upright and conscientious, the other subser- 
vient and unscrupulous. An establishment excludes the good 
man and admits the bad. " Though some purposes of order 
and tranquillity may be answered by the establishment of 
creeds and confessions, yet they are at all times attended with 
serious inconveniences : they check enquiry ; they violate li- 
berty ; they ensnare the consciences of the clergy, by hold- 
ing out temptations to prevarication."! 

And with respect to the habitual accommodation of the ex- 
ercise of the ministry to the desires of the state it is manifest 
that an enlightened and faithful minister may frequently find 
himself restrained by a species of political leading-strings. 
He has not the full command of his intellectual and religious 
attainments. He may not perhaps communicate the whole 
counsel of God. J It was formerly conceded to the English 
clergy that they might preach against the horrors and impolicy 
of war, provided they were not chaplains to regiments or in 
the navy. Conceded! Then if the state had pleased, it 
might have withheld the concession ; and accordingly from 
some the state did Avithhold it. They were prohibited to 
preach against that, against which the apostles wrote ! What 
would these apostles have said if a state had bidden them 
keep silence respecting the most unchristian custom in the 
world 1 They would have said, Whether we ought to obey 
God rather than man, judge ye. What would they have 
done ? They would have gone away and preached against it 

* " Chillingworth declared in a letter to Dr. Sheldon, that if he sub- 
scribed he subscribed his own damnation, and yet in no long space of 
time he actually did subscribe to the articles of the church again and 
again." Simpson's Plea. 

t Paley : Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 6, c. 10. 

X " Honest and disinterested boldness in the path of duty is one of the 
first requisites of a minister of the gospel." Gisborne. But how shall 
they be thus disinterested ? Mem. in the MS. 

38* 



450 RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. [ESSAY III. 

as before. One question more should be asked — What would 
they have said to an alliance which thus brought the Chris- 
tian minister under bondage to the state 1 

The next point of view in which a religious establish- 
ment is injurious to the church itself is, that it perpetuates any 
evils which happens to exist in it. The reason is this : the 
preference which a state gi^es to a particular church is given 
to it as it is. If the church makes alterations in its constitu- 
tion, its discipline, or its forms, it cannot tell whether the state 
would continue to prefer and to patronise it. Besides, if al- 
terations are begun, its members do not know whether the alac- 
rity of some other church might not take advantage of the 
loosening alliance with the state, to supplant it. In short, 
they do not know what would be the consequences of amend- 
ments, nor where they would end. Conscious that the 
church as it is possesses the supremacy, they think it more 
prudent to retain that supremacy with existing evils, than to 
endanger it by attempting to reform them. Thus it is that 
whilst unestablished churches alter their discipline or consti- 
tution as need appears to require, established churches remain 
century after century the same,* Not to be free to alter, can 
only then be right when the church is at present as perfect as 
it can be ; and no one perhaps will gravely say that there is 
any established church on the globe which needs no amend- 
ment. Dr. Hartley devoted a portion of his celebrated work 
to a discussion of the probability that all the existing church 
establishments in the world would be dissolved ; and he founds 
this probability expressly upon the ground that they need so 
much reformation. 

" In all exclusive establishments, where temporal emolu- 
ments are annexed to the profession of a certain system of 
doctrines, and the usage of a certain routine of forms, and 
appropriated to an order of men so and so qualified, that order 
of men will naturally think themselves interested that things 
should continue as they are. A reformation might endanger their 
emoluments. "f This is the testimony of a dignitary of one of 
these establishments . And the fact being admitted, what is the 
amount of evil which it Involves % Let another dignitary 
reply : "He who, by a diligent and faithful examination of the 
original records, dismisses from the system one article which 
contradicts the apprehension, the experience, or the reasoning 

* It was not to religious establishments that Protestants were indebted 
for the first efforts of reformation. They have uniformly resisted reform- 
ation. Mem. in the MS. 

t Archdeacon Blackburn's Confessional: Pref. 



CHAP. XIV.] RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 



451 



of mankind, does more towards recommending trie belief, and 
with the belief the influence of Christianity, to the understand- 
ings and consciences of serious enquirers, and through them 
to universal reception and authority, than can be effected by 
a thousand contenders for creeds and ordinances of human es- 
tablishments." If the benefits of dismissing such an article 
are so great, what must be the evil of continuing it 1 If the 
benefit of dimissing one such article be so great, what must be 
the evil of an established system which tends habitually and 
constantly to retain many of them ? Yet these " articles, 
which thus contradict the reasoning of mankind," are actually 
retained by established churches. " Creeds and confessions," 
says Dr. Paley, " however they may express the persuasion, 
or be accommodated to the controversies or to the fears of the 
age in which they are composed, in process of time, and by 
reason of the changes which are wont to take place in the 
judgment of mankind upon religious subjects, they come at 
length to contradict the actual opinions of the church whose 
doctrines they profess to contain."* It is then confessed by 
the members of an established church that religious establish- 
ments powerfully obstruct the belief, the influence, the uni- 
versal reception and authority of Christianity. Great, indeed, 
must be the counter advantages of these establishments if they 
counterbalance this portion of its evils. 

II. This last paragraph anticipates the second class of dis- 
advantages attendant upon religious establishments : their ill 
effects upon religion generally. It is indisputable, that much 
of the irreligion of the world has resulted from those things 
which have been mixed up with Christianity, and placed be- 
fore mankind as parts of religion. In some countries, the 
mixture lias been so flagrant that the majority of the thinking 
part of the population have almost rejected religion altogether. 
So it was, and so it may be feared it still is, in France. The 
intellectual part of her people rejected religion, not because 
they had examined Christianity and were convinced that it 
was a fiction, but because they had examined what was pro- 
posed to them as Christianity and found it was absurd or 
false. So numerous were the " articles that contradicted the 
experience and judgment of mankind," that they concluded 
the whole was a fable and rejected the whole. 

Now that which the French church establishment did in 
an extreme degree, others do in a less degree. If the French 
church retained a hundred articles that contradicted the judg- 
ment of mankind, and thus made a nation of unbelievers, the 
* Paley : Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 6, c. 10. 



452 



RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. [ESSAY III. 



church which retains ten or five such articles, weakens the 
general influence of religion although it may not destroy it. 

Nor is it merely by unauthorized doctrinal articles or forms 
that the influence of religion is impaired, but by the general 
evils which affect the church itself. It is sufficiently manifest, 
that whatever tends to diminish the virtue, or to impeach the 
character, of the ministers of religion, must tend to diminish 
the influence of religion upon mankind. If the teacher is not 
good, we are not to expect goodness in the taught. If a man 
enters the church with impure or unworthy motives, he can- 
not do his duty when he is there. If he makes religion sub- 
servient to interest in his own practice, he cannot effectually 
teach others to make religion paramount to all. Men asso- 
ciate (they ought to do it less) the idea of religion with that 
of its teachers ; and their respect for one is frequently mea- 
sured by their respect for the other. Now, that the effect of 
religious establishments has been to depress their teachers in 
the estimation of mankind, cannot be disputed. The effect is, 
in truth, inevitable. And it is manifest that whatever con- 
veys disrespectful ideas of religion diminishes its influence 
upon the human mind. In brief, we have seen that to estab- 
lish a religion is morally pernicious to its ministers ; and 
whatever is injurious to them diminishes the power of religion 
in the world. 

Christianity is a religion of good-will and kind affections. 
Its essence, so far as the intercourse of society is concerned, 
is Love. Whatever diminishes good-will and kind affections 
amongst Christians, attacks the essence of Christianity. Now, 
religious establishments do this. They generate ill-will, heart- 
burnings, animosities — those very things which our religion 
deprecates more almost than any other. It is obvious that if 
a fourth or a third of a community think they are unreason- 
ably excluded from privileges which the other parts enjoy, 
feelings of jealousy or envy are likely to be generated. If the 
minority are obliged to pay to the support of a religion they 
disapprove, these feelings are likely to be exacerbated. They 
soon become reciprocal ; attacks are made by one party and 
repelled by another, till there arises an habitual sense of un- 
kindness or ill-will.* The deduction from the practical influ- 

* I once met with rather a grotesque definition of religious dissent, but 
it illustrates my proposition : — " Dissenterism " — that is, " systematic op- 
position to the established religion." 

" The placing all the religious sects (in America) upon an equal foot- 
ing with respect to the government of the country, has effectually se- 
cured the peace of the community, at the same time that it has essen- 



CHAP. XIV.] RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 



453 



ence of religion upon the minds of men which this effect of 
religious estabhshments occasions, is great The evil, I 
trust, is diminishing in the world ; but then the diminution 
results, not from religious establishments, but from that power 
of Christianity which prevails against these evils. 

From these, and from other evidences of the injurious effects 
of religious establishments upon the religious condition of 
mankind, we shall perhaps be prepared to assent to the ob- 
servations which follow : " The history of the last eighteen 
centuries does, indeed, afford, in various ways, a strong pre- 
sumptive evidence; that the cause of true Christianity has very 
materially suffered in the world in consequence of the con- 
nexion between the church and the state. It is probably 
in great measure the consequence of such an union that the 
church has assumed, in almost all Christian countries, so sec- 
ular a character — that Christianity has become so lament- 
ably mixed up with the spirit, maxims, motives, and poli- 
tics of a vain and evil world, Had the union in question never 
been attempted, pme religion might probably have found a 
freer course ; the practical effects of- Christianity might have 
been more unmixed and more extensive ; and it might have 
spread its influence in a much more efficient manner than is 
now the case, even over the laws and politics of kings and 
nations. Before its union with the state, our holy religion 
nourished with comparative incorruptness ; afterwards it 
gradually declined in its purity and its power until all was 
nearly lost in darkness, superstition, and spiritual tyranny." * 
" Religion should remain distinct from the political constitu- 
tion of a state. Intermingled with it, what purpose can it 
serve, except the baneful purpose of communicating and of 
receiving contamination V s f 

III. Then as to the effect of religious establishments upon 
the civil welfare of a state — we know that the connexion be- 
tween religious and civil welfare is intimate and great. 

tially promoted the interests of truth and virtue." — Mem. Dr Priestly, p. 
175. Mem. in the MS. 

Pennsylvania. — " Although there are so many sects and snch a differ- 
ence of religious opinions in this province, it is surprising the harmony 
which subsists among them ; they consider themselves as children of the 
same father, and live like brethren because they have the liberty of 
thinking like men ; to this pleasing harmony, in a great measure is to be 
attributed the rapid and nourishing state of Pennsylvania above all the 
other provinces." Travels through the Interior parts of North America, 
by an Officer. 1791. Lond. The officer was Thomas Aubery, who 
was taken prisoner by the Americans. Mem. in the MS. 

* J. J. Gurney : Peculiarities, c. 7. t Charles James Fox : Fell's Life. 



454 



RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. [ESSAY III. 



Whatever therefore diminishes the influence of religion up- 
on a people, diminishes their general welfare. In addition, 
however, to this general consideration, there are some partic- 
ular modes of the injurious effects of religious establishments 
which it may be proper to notice. 

And, first, religious establishments are incompatible with 
complete religious liberty. This consideration we requested 
the reader to bear in mind when the question of religious lib- 
erty was discussed. * " If an establishment be right, re- 
ligious liberty is not ; and if religious liberty be right, an 
establishment is not." Whatever arguments therefore exist 
to prove the rectitude of complete religious liberty, they 
prove at the same time the wrongness of religious establish- 
ments. Nor is this all ; for it is the manifest tendency of 
these establishments to withhold an increase of religious lib- 
erty, even when on other grounds it would be granted. The 
secular interests of the state religion are set in array against an 
increase of liberty. If the established church allows other 
churches to approach more nearly to an equality with itself, 
its own relative eminence is diminished ; and if by any 
means the state religion adds to its own privileges, it is by 
deducting from the privileges of the rest. The state religion is, 
besides, afraid to dismiss any part even of its confessedly use- 
less privileges, lest, when an alteration is begun, it should not 
easily be stopped. And there is no reason to doubt that it is 
temporal rather than religious considerations — interest rather 
than Christianity — which now occasions restrictions and dis- 
abilities and tests. 

In conformity with these views, persecution has generally 
been the work of religious establishments. Indeed, some 
alliance or some countenance at least from the state is neces- 
sary to a systematic persecution. Popular outrage may per- 
secute men on account of their religion, as it often has done ; 
but fixed stated persecutions have perhaps always been the 
work of the religion of the state. It was the state religion of 
Rome that persecuted the first Christians ; not to mention 
that it was the state religion of Judea that put our Saviour 
himself to death. — " Who was it that crucified the Saviour of 
the world for attempting to reform the religion of his country ? 
The Jewish priesthood. — Who was it that drowned the altars 
of their idols with the blood of Christians for attempting to 
abolish Paganism 1 The Pagan priesthood. — Who was it 
that persecuted to flames and death those who, in the time 
of Wickliffe and his followers, laboured to reform the errors 
* Essay 3, c. 4. 



CHAP. XIV.] RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 



455 



of Popery ? The Popish priesthood. — Who was it, and who 
is it that, both in England and in Ireland since the Reforma- 
tion — but I check my hand, being unwilling to reflect upon 
the dead, or to exasperate the living."* We also are unwill- 
ing to reflect upon or to exasperate, but our business is with 
plain truth. Who, then, was it that since the Reformation 
has persecuted dissentients from its creed, and who is it that 
at this hour thinks and speaks of them with unchristian an- 
tipathy 1 The English Priesthood. It was, and it is, the 
state religion in some European countries that now persecutes 
Dissenters from its creed. It was the state religion in this 
country that persecuted the Protestants ; since Protestantism 
has been established, itisthe state religion which has persecuted 
Protestant Dissenters. Is this the fault principally of the 
faith of these churches, or of their alliance with the state 1 
No man can be in doubt for an answer. 

We are accustomed to attribute too much to bigotry. Big- 
otry has been very great and very operative ; but bigotry alone 
would not have produced the disgraceful and dreadful trans- 
actions which fill the records of ecclesiastical history. No. 
Men have often been actuated by the love of supremacy or 
of money, whilst they were talking loudly of the sacredness 
of their faith. They have been less afraid for religion than 
for the dominance of a church. W r hen the creed of that 
church was impugned, those who shared in its advantages 
were zealous to suppress the rising enquiry ; because the dis- 
credit of the creed might endanger the loss of the advantages. 
The zeal of a Pope for the real presence, was often quite a 
fiction. He and his cardinals cared perhaps nothing for the real 
presence, as they sometimes cared nothing for morality. But 
men might be immoral without encroaching upon the Papal 
Power — they could not deny the doctrine without endangering 
its overthrow. 

Happily, persecution for religion is greatly diminished ; 
yet, whilst we rejoice in the fact, we cannot conceal from our- 
selves the consideration, that the diminution of persecution 
has resulted rather from the general diffusion of better princi- 
ples than from the operation of religious establishments as such. 

In most or in all ages, a great portion of the flagitious trans- 
actions which furnish materials for the ecclesiastical historian, 
have resulted from the political connexions or interests of a 
church. It was not the interest of Christianity but of an es- 
tablishment, which made Becket embroil his king and other 

* Miscellaneous Tracts by Richard Watson, D. D., Bishop of Lan- 
daff, v. 2. 



456 



RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. [ESSAY III. 



sovereigns in distractions. It was not trie interests of Chris- 
tianity but of an establishment, which occasioned the mon- 
strous impositions and usurpations of the Papal see. And I 
do not know whether there has ever been a religious war of 
which religion was the only or the principal cause. Besides 
all this, there has been an inextricable succession of intrigues 
and cabals — of conflicting interests — and clamour and dis- 
traction, which the world would have been spared if secular 
interests had not been brought into connection with religion. 

Another mode in which religious establishments are inju- 
rious to the civil welfare of a people, is by their tendency to 
resist political improvements. That same cause which in- 
duces state religions to maintain themselves as they are, indu- 
ces them to maintain the patron state as it is. It is the state 
in its present condition, that secures to the church its advan- 
tages ; and the church does not know whether, if it were to 
encourage political reformation, the new state of things might 
not endanger its own supremacy. There are indeed so many 
other interests and powers concerned in political reformations, 
that the state religion cannot always prevent alterations from 
being effected. Nor would I affirm that they always endea- 
vour to prevent it. And yet we may appeal to the general 
experience of all ages, whether established churches have 
not resisted reformation in those political institutions upon 
which their own privileges depended. Now, these are seri- 
ous things. For after all that can be said, and justly said, of 
the mischiefs of political changes and the extravagances of 
political empiricism, it is sufficiently certain that almost every 
government that has been established in the world, has needed 
from time to time important reformations in its constitution or 
its practice. And it is equally certain, that if there be any 
influence or power which habitually and with little discrimi- 
nation supports political institutions as they are, that influence 
or power must be very pernicious to the world. 

We have seen that one of the requisites of a religious es- 
tablishment is a " legal provision " for its ministers — that is 
to say, the members of all the churches which exist in a state 
must be obliged to pay to the Support of one, whether they 
approve of that one or not. 

Now in endeavouring to estimate the effects of this system, 
with a view to ascertain the preponderance of public advan- 
tages, we are presented at the outset with the enquiry — Is 
this compulsory maintenance right ? Is it compatible with 
Christianity 1 If it is not, there is an end of the controversy ; 
for it is nothing to Christians whether a system be politic or 



CHAP. XIV.] RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 



457 



impolitic, if once they have discovered that it is wrong. But 
I waive for the present the question of rectitude. The reader 
is at liberty to assume that Christianity allows governments to 
make this compulsory provision if they think fit. I waive, 
too, the question whether a Christian minister ought to receive 
payment for his labours, whether that payment be voluntary 
or not. 

The single point before us is, then, the balance of advan- 
tages. Is it more advantageous that ministers should be paid 
by a legal provision or by voluntary subscription 1 

That advantage of a legal provision which consists in the 
supply of a teacher to every district has already been noticed ; 
so that our enquiry is reduced to a narrow limit. Supposing 
that a minister would be appointed in every district although 
the state did not pay him, is it more desirable that he should 
be paid by the state or voluntarily by the people 1 

Of the legal provision some of the advantages are these : 
it holds out no inducement to the irreligious or indifferent to 
absent themselves from public worship lest they should be 
expected to pay the preacher. Public worship is conducted 
— the preacher delivers his discourse — whether such persons 
go or not. They pay no more for going, and no less for stay- 
ing away : and it is probable, in the present religious state 
of mankind, that some go to places for worship since it costs 
them nothing, who otherwise would stay away. But it is 
manifestly better that men should attend even in such a state 
of indifference than that they should not attend at all. Upon 
the voluntary system of payment, this good effect is not so 
fully secured ; for though the doors of chapels be open to all, 
yet few persons of competent means would attend them con- 
stantly without feeling that they might be expected to con- 
tribute to the expenses. I do not believe that the non-attend- 
ance of indifferent persons would be greatly increased by the 
adoption of the voluntary system, especially if the payments 
were as moderate as they easily might be ; — but it is a ques- 
tion rather of speculation than of experience, and the reader 
is to give upon this account to the system of legal provision, 
such an amount of advantage as he shall think fit. 

Again. — Preaching, where there is a legal provision, is not 
" a mode of begging." If you adopt voluntary payment, that 
payment depends upon the good pleasure of the hearers, and 
there is manifestly a temptation upon the preacher to accom- 
modate his discourses, or the manner of them, to the wishes 
of his hearers, rather than to the dictates of his own judgment. 
But the man who receives his stipend whether his hearers be 

39 



458 



RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. [ESSAY III. 



pleased or not, is under no such temptation. He is at liberty 
to conform the exercise of his functions to his judgment with- 
out the diminution of a subscription. This, I think, is an 
undeniable advantage. 

Another consideration is this : — That where there is a re- 
ligious establishment with a legal provision, it is usual, not 
to say indispensable, to fill the pulpits only with persons who 
entertain a certain set of religious opinions. It would be ob- 
viously idle -to assume that these opinions are true, but they 
are, or are in a considerable degree, uniform. Assuming then, 
that one set of opinions is as sound as another, is it better 
that a district should always hear one set, or that the teachers 
of twenty different sets should successively gain possession 
of the pulpit, as the choice of the people might direct ? I 
presume not to determine such a question ; but it may be ob- 
served, that, in point of fact, those churches which do pro- 
ceed upon the voluntary system, are not often subjected to 
such fluctuations of doctrine. There does not appear much 
difficulty in constituting churches upon the voluntary plan, 
which shall in practice secure considerable uniformity in the 
sentiments of the teachers. And as to the bitter animosities 
and distractions which have been predicted if a choice of new 
teachers was to be left to the people — they do not, I believe, 
ordinarily follow. Not that I apprehend the ministers, for in- 
stance, of an independent church are always elected with 
that unanimity and freedom from heart-burnings which ought to 
subsist, but that animosities do not subsist to any great extent. 
Besides, the prediction appears to be founded on the suppo- 
sition, that a certain stipend was to be appropriated to one 
teacher or to another, according as he might obtain the greater 
number of votes — whereas every man is at liberty, if he 
pleases, to withdraw his contribution from him whom he dis- 
approves, and to give it to another. And, after all, there may 
be voluntary support of ministers without an election by those 
who contribute, as is instanced by the Methodists in the pres- 
ent day. 

On the other hand, there are some advantages attendant on 
the voluntary system which that of a legal provision does not 
possess. 

. And first it appears to be of importance that there should 
be a union, a harmony, a cordiality between the minister and 
the people. It is, in truth, an indispensable requisite. Chris- 
tianity, which is a religion of love, cannot flourish where- un- 
kindly feelings prevail. Now, I think it is manifest that har- 
mony and cordiality are likely to prevail more where the 



CHAP. XIV.] RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 



459 



minister is chosen and voluntarily remunerated by his hearers, 
than where they are not consulted in the choice ; where they 
are obliged to take him whom others please to appoint, and 
where they are compelled to pay him whether they like him 
or not. The tendency of this last system is evidently opposed 
to perfect kindliness and cordiality. JThere is likely to be a 
sort of natural connexion, a communication of good offices 
induced between hearers and the man whom they themselves 
choose and voluntarily remunerate, which is less likely in the 
other case. If love be of so much consequence generally to 
the Christian character, it is especially of consequence that 
it should subsist between him who assumes to be a dispenser, 
and them who are in the relation of hearers of the gospel of 
Christ. 

Indeed the very circumstance that a man is compelled to pay 
a preacher, tends to the introduction of unkind and unfriendly 
feelings. It is not to be expected that men will pay him 
more graciously or with a better will than they pay a tax- 
gatherer ; and we all know that the tax-gatherer is one of the 
last persons whom men wish to see. He who desires to ex- 
tend the influence of Christianity, would be very cautious of 
establishing a system of which so ungracious a regulation 
formed a part. There is truth worthy of grave attention in 
the ludicrous verse of Cowper's — 

A rarer man than you 

In pulpit none shall hear ; 
But yet, methinks to tell you true, 

You sell it plaguy dear. 

It is easy to perceive that the influence of that man's exhor- 
tations must be diminished, whose hearers listen with the re- 
flection that his advice is " plaguy dear." The reflection, too, 
is perfectly natural, and cannot be helped. And when super- 
added to this is the consideration, that it is not only sold 
" dear," but that payment is enforced — material injury must be 
sustained by the cause of religion. In this -view it may be 
remarked, that the support of an establishment by a general 
tax would be preferable to the payment of each pastor, by his 
own hearers. Nor is it unworthy of notice that some persons 
will always think (whether with reason or without it) that 
compulsory maintenance is not right ; and in whatever degree 
they do this, there is an increased cause of dissatisfaction or 
estrangement. 

Again, the teacher who is independent of the congregation 
— who will enjoy all his emoluments whether they are satis- 
fied with him or not — is under manifest temptation to remiss- 



460 



RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. [ESSAY III. 



ness in his duty ; not perhaps to remissness in those partic- 
ulars on which his superiors would animadvert, but in those 
which respect the unstipulated and undefinable, but very im- 
portant duties of private care, and of private labours. To 
mention this is sufficient. No man who reflects upon the 
human constitution, or who looks around him, will need argu- 
ments to prove that they are likely to labour negligently whose 
profits are not increased by assuidity and zeal. I know that 
the power of religion can, and that it often does, counteract 
this ; but that is no argument for putting temptation in the way. 
So powerful indeed is this temptation, that with a very great 
number it is acknowledged to prevail. Even if we do not 
assert, with a clergyman, that a great proportion of his breth- 
ren labour only so much for the religious benefit of their par- 
ishioners as will screen them from the arm of the law, there 
is other evidence which is unhappily conclusive. The des- 
perate extent to which non-residence is practised, is infallible 
proof that a large proportion of the clergy are remiss in the 
discharge of the duties of a Christian pastor. They do not 
discharge them con amore ; and how should they ? It was 
not the wish to do this which prompted them to become cler- 
gymen at first. They were influenced by another object, and 
that they have obtained — they possess an income : and it is 
not to be expected that, when this is obtained, the mental de- 
sires should suddenly become elevated and purified, and that 
they who entered the church for the sake of its emoluments, 
should commonly labour in it for the sake of religion. 

Although to many the motive for entering the church is 
the same as that for engaging in other professions, it is an 
unhappiness peculiar to the clerical profession, that it does 
not offer the same stimulus to subsequent exertion ; that ad- 
vancement does not usually depend upon desert. The man 
who seeks for an income from surgery, or the bar, is continu- 
ally prompted to pay exemplary attention to its duties. Un- 
less the surgeon is skilful and attentive, he knows that practice 
is not to be expected : unless the pleader devotes himself to 
statutes and reports, he knows that he is not to expect cases 
and briefs. But the clergyman, whether he studies the Bible 
or not — whether he be diligent and zealous or not — still pos- 
sesses his living. Nor would it be rational to expect, that 
where the ordinary stimulus to human exertion is wanting, 
the exertion itself should generally be found. So naturally 
does exertion follow from stimulus, that we believe it is an 
observation frequently made, that curates are more exemplary 
than 4 beneficed clergymen. And if beneficed clergymen were 



CHAP. XIV.] RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 



461 



more solicitous than they are to make the diligence of their 
curates the principal consideration in employing them, this 
difference between curates and their employers would be much 
greater than it is. Let beneficed clergymen employ and re- 
ward curates upon as simple principles as those are on which 
a merchant employs and rewards a clerk, and it is probable 
that nine-tenths of the parishes in England would wish for a 
curate rather than a rector. 

But this very consideration affords a powerful argument 
against the present system. If much good would result from 
making clerical reward the price of desert, much evil results 
from making it independent of desert. This effect of the En- 
glish Establishment is not, like some others, inseparable from 
the institution. It would doubtless be possible, even with 
compulsory maintenance, so to appropriate it that it should 
form a constant motive to assiduity and exertion. Clergymen 
might Be elevated in their profession according to their fidelity 
to their office ; and if this were done — if, as opportunity 
offered, all w r ere likely to be promoted who deserved it ; and 
if all who did not deserve it were sure to be passed by, a new 
face would soon be put upon the affairs of the church. The 
complaints of neglect of duty would quickly be diminished, 
and non-residence would soon cease to be the reproach of 
three thousand out of ten. We cannot, however, amuse our- 
selves with the hope that this will be done, because, in refer- 
ence to the civil constitution of the church, there is too near 
an approach to that condition in which the whole head is sick, 
and the whole heart faint. 

If then it be asserted, that it is one great advantage of the 
establishment that it provides a teacher for every parish, it is 
one great disadvantage, that it makes a large proportion of 
those teachers negligent of their duty. 

There may perhaps be a religious establishment in which 
the ministers shall be selected for their deserts, though I know 
not whether in any it is actually and sufficiently done. That 
it is one of the first requisites in the appointment of religious 
teachers is plain ; and this point is manifestly better consulted 
by a system in which the people voluntarily pay and choose 
their pastors, than when they do not. Men love goodness in 
others, though they may be bad themselves ; and they espe- 
cially like it in their religious teachers : so that, when they 
come to select a person to fill that office, they are likely to 
select one of whom they think at least that he is a good man. 

The same observation holds of non-residence. Non-resi- 
39* 



462 



RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. 



[ESSAY III. 



dence is not necessary to a state religion. By the system of 
voluntary payment it is impossible. 

It has sometimes been said (with whatever truth) that in 
times of public discontent dissenters have been disposed to 
disaffection. If this be true, compulsory support is in this 
respect a political evil, inasmuch as it is the cause of the alien- 
ation of a part of the community. We will not suppose so 
strong a case as that this alienation might lead to physical 
opposition ; but supposing the dissatisfaction only to exist, 
affords no inconsiderable topic of the 'statesman's enquiry. 
Happiness is the object of civil government, and this object 
is frustrated in part in respect of those who think themselves 
aggrieved by its policy. And when it is considered how nu- 
merous the dissenters are, and that they increase in number, 
the political impropriety and impolicy of keeping them in a 
state of dissatisfaction becomes increased. 

The best security of a government is in the satisfaction 
and affection of the people ; which satisfaction is always 
diminished, and which affection is always endangered, in re- 
spect of those who, disapproving a certain church, are com- 
pelled to pay to its support. This is a consequence of a 
" legal provision" that demands much attention from the legis- 
lator. Every legislator knows that it is an evil. It is a point 
that no man disputes, and that every man knows should be 
prevented, unless its cause effects a counterbalance of ad- 
vantages. 

Lastly, Upon the question of the* comparative advantages 
of a legal provision, and a voluntary remuneration in securing 
the due discharge of the ministerial function, what is the evi- 
dence of facts ? Are the ministers of established, or of un- 
established churches, the more zealous, the more exemplary, 
the more laborious, the more devoted 1 Whether of the two 
are the more beloved by their hearers 1 Whether of the two 
lead the more exemplary and religious lives ? Whether of the 
two are the more active in works of philanthropy ? It is a 
question of facts, and facts are before the world. 

The discussions of the present chapter conduct the mind 
of the writer to these short conclusions : 

That of the two grounds upon which the propriety of Re- 
ligious Establishments is capable of examination, neither af- 
fords evidence in their favour: That Religious Establishments 
derive no countenance from the nature of Christianity, or from 
the example of the primitive churches ; and, That they are 
not recommended by practical Utility. 



CHAP. XV.] RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS, ETC 



463 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS OF ENGLAND AND 
IRELAND. 

The English Church the offspring of the Reformation, the Church estab- 
lishment, of Papacy — Alliance of Church and State — " The Priesthood 
averse from Reformation " — Noble Ecclesiastics — Purchase of Advow- 
sons — Non-residence — Pluralities — Parliamentary Returns — The Cler- 
gy fear to preach the truth — Moral Preaching — Recoil from Works of 
Philanthropy— Tithes— " The Church is in Danger"— The Church 
establishment is in danger — Monitory Suggestion. 

THE ENGLISH ESTABLISHMENT IS OF PAPAL ORIGIN. 

If the conclusions of the last chapter be just, it will now 
become our business to enquire how far the disadvantages 
which are incidental to religious establishments actually oper- 
ate in our own, and whether there subsist any additional dis- 
advantages resulting from the peculiar constitution or circum- 
stances of the English church. 

We have no concern with religious opinions, or forms of 
church government, but with the church as connected with the 
state. It is not with an episcopalian church, but with an estab- 
lished church, that we are concerned. If there must exist 
a religious establishment, let it by all means remain in its 
present hands. The experience which England has had of 
the elevation of another sect to the supremacy, is not such as 
to make us wish to see another elevated again.* Nor would 

* The religious sect who are now commonly called Puritans, " pro- 
hibited the use of the Common Prayer, not merely in churches, chapels, 
and places of public worship, but in any private place or family as well, 
under a penalty of five pounds for the first offence, ten pounds for the 
second, and for the third a year's imprisonment."* These men did not 
understand, or did not practise the fundamental duties of toleration. For 
religious liberty they had still less regard. " They passed an ordinance 
by which eight heresies were made punishable with death upon the first 
offence, unless the offender abjured his errors, and irremissibly if he re- 
lapsed.*' Sixteen other opinions were to be punished with imprisonment, 
till the offender should find sureties that he would maintain them no 
more."t And they quite abolished the Episcopal rank and order, as if 
each church might not decide for itself by what form its discipline should 
be conducted ? To have separated the civil privileges from the episcopal 
order was within the province of the Legislature, and to have abolished 
those privileges would, we think, have been wise. 



* Southey's Book of the Church. 



tid. 



464 



RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS OF [ESSAY III. 



any sect which takes a just view of its own religious interests 
desire the supremacy for itself. 

The origin of the English establishment is papal. The 
political alliance of the church is similar now to what it was 
in the first years of Henry VIII. When Henry countenanced 
the preachers of the reformed opinions, when he presented 
some of them with the benefices which had hitherto been pos- 
sessed by the Romish clergy ; and when at length these ben- 
efices and the other privileges of the state religion were 
bestowed upon the " reformed" only — no essential change was 
effected in the political constitution of the church. In one 
point indeed the alliance with the state was made more strict, 
because the supremacy was transferred from the pope to the 
monarch. So that the same or a kindred political character 
was put in connexion with other men and new opinions. The 
church was altered but the establishment remained nearly the 
same : or the difference that did obtain made the establishment 
more of a state religion than before. The origin therefore of 
the English establishment is papal. It was planted by papal 
policy, and nurtured by pervading superstition : and as to the 
transfer of the supremacy, but little credit is due to its origin 
or its motives. No reverence is due to our establishment on 
account of its* parentage. The church is the offspring of the 
reformation — the church establishment is not. It is not a 
daughter of protestantism but of the papacy — brought into un- 
natural alliance with a better faith. Unhappily, but little 
anxiety was shown by some of the reformers to purify the 
political character of the church when its privileges came into 
their own hands. They declaimed against the corruptions of 
the former church, but were more than sufficiently willing to 
retain its profits and its power. 

The alliance with the state of which we have spoken, as 
the inseparable attendant of religious establishments, is in this 
country peculiarly close. " Church and State" is a phrase 
that is continually employed, and indicates the intimacy of 
the connexion between them. The question then arises, 
whether those disadvantages which result generally from, the 
alliance, result in this country, and whether the peculiar in- 
timacy is attended with peculiar evils. 

Bishops are virtually appointed by the prince ; and it is 
manifest that in the present principles of political affairs, re- 
gard will be had, in their selection, to the interests of the state. 
The question will not always be, when a bishoprick becomes 
vacant, Who is the fittest man to take the oversight of the 



CHAP. XV.] ENGLAND AND IRELAND. 



465 



church ? but sometimes — What appointment will most effect- 
ually strengthen the administration of the day ?— -Bishops are 
temporal peers, and as such they have an efficient ability 
to promote the views of the government by their votes in par- 
liament. Bishops in their turn are patrons ; and it becomes 
also manifest that these appointments will sometimes be regu- 
lated by kindred views. He who was selected by the cabinet 
because he would promote their measures, and who cannot 
hope for advancement if he opposes those measures, is not 
likely to select clergymen who oppose them. Many ecclesi- 
astical appointments, again, are in the hands of the individual 
officers of government — of the prime minister, for example, 
or the lord chancellor. That these officers will frequently 
regard political purposes, or purposes foreign to the worth of 
men, in making these appointments, is plain. Now, when we 
reflect that the highest dignities of the church are in the 
patronage of the king, and that the influence of their dignita- 
ries upon the inferior clergy is necessarily great, it becomes 
obvious, that there will be diffused through the general whole 
of the hierarchy a systematic alliance with the ruling power. 
Nor is it assuming any thing unreasonable to add, that whilst 
the ordinary principles that actuate mankind operate, the hie- 
rarchy will sometimes postpone the interests of religion to 
their own. 

Upon the practical authority of cabinets over the church, 
Bishop Warburton makes himself somewhat mirthful : — " The 
rabbins make the giant Gog or Magog contemporary with 
Noah, and convinced by his preaching. So that he was dis- 
posed to take the benefit of the ark. But here lay the distress 
— it by no means suited his dimensions. Therefore, as he 
could not enter in, he contented himself to ride upon it astride. 
Image now to yourself this illustrious cavalier, mounted on 
his hackney, and see if he does not bring before you the church, 
bestrid by some lumpish minister of state, who turns and 
winds it at his pleasure. The only difference is, that Gog 
believed the preacher of righteousness and religion."* 

If, then, to convert a religious establishment into " a means 
of strengthening or diffusing influence, serves only to debase 
it, and to introduce into it numerous corruptions and abuses," 
these debasements, corruptions, and abuses must necessarily 
subsist in the establishment of England. 

And first as to the church itself. — -It is not too much to be- 
lieve that the honourable earnestness of many of the reformers 
to purify religion from the corruptions of the papacy, was 
* Bishop Warburton's Letters to Bishop Hurd, Letter 47, 



466 



RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS OF [ESSAY III. 



cooled, and eventually almost destroyed by the acquisition of 
temporal immunities. When they had acquired them, the un- 
happy reasoning began to operate — Let us let well alone : if 
we encourage further changes our advantages will perhaps pass 
into other hands We are safe as we are; and we will not en- 
danger the loss of present benefits by further reformation. What 
has been the result ? — That the church has never been fully 
reformed to the present hour. If any reader is disposed to 
deny this, I place the proposition not upon my feeble authority, 
but upon that of the members of the church and of the reform- 
ers themselves. The reader will be pleased to notice that 
there are few quotations in the present chapter except from 
members of the church of England. 

" If any person will seriously consider the low and super- 
stitious state of the minds of men in general in the time of 
James I., much more in the reigns of his predecessors, he 
will not be surprised to rind that there are various matters in 
our ecclesiastical constitution which require some alteration. 
Our forefathers did great things, and we cannot be sufficiently 
thankful for their labours, but much more remains to be done."* 
Hartley says of the ecclesiastical powers of the Christian 
world — " They have all left the true, pure, simple religion, 
and teach for doctrines the commandments of men. They 
are all merchants of the earth, and have set up a kingdom 
of this world, abounding in riches, temporal power, and ex- 
ternal pomp.'"t Dr. Henry More (he was zealous for the 
honour of the church) says of the reformed churches, they 
have " separated from the great Babylon to build those that 
are lesser and more tolerable, but yet not to be tolerated for 
ever."J 

" It pleased God in his unsearchable wisdom to suffer the 
progress of this great work, the reformation, to be stopped in 
the midway, and the effects of it to be greatly weakened by 
many unhappy divisions among the reformed. 

" The innovations introduced into our religious establish- 
ment at the reformation, were great and glorious for those 
times : but some further innovations are yet wanting (would 
to God they may be quietly made !) to bring it to perfection. "|| 

" I have always had a true zeal for the church of England ; 

* Simpson's Plea, p. 137. t Essay on Man, 1749, v. 2, p. 370. 

t Myst. of Iniquity : p. 553. This poor man found that his language 
laboured under the imputation of being unclerical, unguarded, and impo- 
litic ; and he afterwards showed solicitude to retract it. See p. 476, &a 
of same work. 

§ Dr. Louth, afterwards Bishop of London: Visitation Sermon. 1758 
|| Dr. Watson, Bishop of Landaff: Misc. Tracts, v. 2, p. 17, &c 



CHAP. XIV.] 



ENGLAND AND IRELAND. 



467 



yet I must say — there are many things in it that have been very 
uneasy to me."* 

" Cranmer, Bucer, Jewel, and others, never considered the 
reformation which took place in their own times as com- 
plete."! 

Long after Cranmer's days, some of the brightest orna- 
ments of the church still thought a reformation was needed. 
Tillotson, Patrick, Tennison, Kidder, Stillingfleet, Burnet, 
and others,^ endeavoured a further reformation, though in 
vain. 

" We have been contented to sufFer our religious constitu- 
tion, our doctrines, and ceremonies, and forms of public wor- 
ship, to remain nearly in the same unpurged, adulterated, and 
superstitious state in which the original reformers left them."§ 

I attribute this want of reformation primarily to the political 
alliance of the church. Why should those who have the 
power to effect it refuse, unless it was that they feared some 
ill result ? And what ill result could arise from religious re- 
formation if it were not the endangering of temporal advan- 
tages ? 

" I would only ask," said Lord Bacon, two hundred years 
ago, " why the civil state should be purged and restored by 
good and wholesome laws, made every third or fourth year 
in parliament assembled, devising remedies as fast as time 
breedeth mischief ; and contrariwise, the ecclesiastical state 
should still continue upon the dregs of time, and receive no 
alteration now for these five-and-forty years and more. — If 
St. John were to indite an epistle to the church of England, 
as he did to them of Asia, it would sure have the clause 
habeo adversus te pauca."\\ What would Lord Bacon have 
said if he had lived to our day, when two hundred years more 
have passed, and the establishment still continues " upon the 
dregs of time !" — But Lord Bacon's question should be an- 
swered ; and though no reason can be given for refusing to 
reform, a cause can be assigned. 

" Whatever truth there may be in the proposition which 
asserts that the multitude is fond of innovation, I think that 
the proposition which asserts that the priesthood is averse from 
reformation, is far more generally true."^ This is the cause. 
They who have the power of reforming, are afraid to touch 
the fabric. They are afraid to remove one stone however 
decayed, lest another and another should be loosened, until 

* Bishop Burnet : Hist. Own Times, v. 2, p. 634. 
t Simpson's Plea. J Id. § Id. || Works : Edit. 

1803, v. 2, p. 527. f Bishop Watson : Misc. Tracts, v. 2. 



I 



468 RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS OF [ESSAY III. 

the fabric, as a political institution, should fall. Let us hear 
again episcopal evidence. Bishop Porteous informs us, that 
himself with some other clergymen, (amongst whom were 
Dr. Percy and Dr. York, both subsequently bishops,) attempt- 
ed to induce the bishops to alter some things "which all reas- 
onable persons agreed stood in need of amendment." The 
answer given by Archbishop Cornwallis was exactly to the 
purpose — " I have consulted, severally, my brethren the bish- 
ops ; and it is the opinion of the bench in general, that no- 
thing can in prudence be done in the matter."* Here is no 
attempt to deny the existence of the evils — no attempt to show 
that they ought not to be amended, but only that it would not 
" be prudent" to amend them. What were these considera- 
tions of prudence ? Did they respect religion 1 Is it impru- 
dent to purify religious offices ? Or did they respect the 
temporal privileges of the church 1 — No man surely can 
doubt, that if the church had been a religious institution only, 
its heads would have thought it both prudent and right to 
amend it. 

The matters to which Bishop Porteous called the attention 
of the bench were, "the liturgy, but especially the articles." 
These Articles afford an extraordinary illustration of that ten- 
dency to resist improvement of which we speak. 

" The requiring subscription to the thirty-nine articles is a 
great imposition."! " Do the articles of the church of Eng- 
land want a revisal? — Undoubtedly."! — In 1772, a clerical 
petition was presented to the House of Commons for relief 
upon the subject of subscription : and what were the senti- 
ments of the house respecting the articles 1 One member 
said, " I am persuaded they are not warranted by Scripture, 
and I am sure they cannot be reconciled to common sense."^ 
Another — " They are contradicted, absurd, several of them 
damnable, not only in a religious and speculative light, but 
also in a moral and practical view."|| Another — " The arti- 
cles, I am sure, want a revisal ; because several of them are 
heterodox and absurd, warranted neither by reason nor by 
Scripture. Many of them seem calculated for keeping out 
of the church all but those who will subscribe any thing, and 
sacrifice every consideration to the mammon of unrighteous- 
ness. "H And a fourth said — " Some of them are, in my opin- 
ion, unfounded in, some of them inconsistent with, reason and 

* Works of Bishop Porteous : vol. 1. t Bishop Burnet : Hist. Own 
Times, v. 3, p. 634. % Bishop Watson : Misc. Tracts, v. 2, p. 17. 

§ Lord George Germain. || Sir William Meredith. 

IT Lord John Cavendish. 



CHAP. XV.] 



ENGLAND AND IRELAND. 



469 



Scripture ; and some of them subversive of the very genius 
and design of the gospel."* The articles found, it appears, 
in the House of Commons one, and one only defender ; and 
that one was Sir Roger Newdigate, the member for Oxford.f 
— And thus a " Church of Christ" retains in its bosom that 
which is confessedly irrational, inconsistent with Scripture, 
contradictory, absurd, subversive of the very genius and de- 
sign of the gospel : — for what ? Because the church is allied 
to the state ; because it is a Religious Establishment. 

There is such an interest, an importance, an awfulness in 
these things, resulting both from their effects and the respon- 
sibility which they entail, that I would accumulate upon the 
general necessity for reformation some additional testimonies. 

In 1746 was presented to the convocation, " Free and Can- 
did Disquisitions by Dutiful Sons of the Church," in which 
they say, " Our duty seems as clear as our obligations to it 
are cogent ; and is, in one word, to reform." Of this book 
Archdeacon Blackburn tells us that it was treated with " much 
contempt and scorn by those who ought to have paid the 
greatest regard to the subject of it ;" and that " it caused the 
forms of the church to be weighed in the balance of the sanc- 
tuary, where they have been found greatly wanting P\ 

" Our confirmations, and I may add even our ordinations 
for the sacred ministry, are dwindled into painful and disgust- 
ing ceremonies, as they are usually administered. "§ 

Another archdeacon, who was not only a friend of the 
church but a public advocate of religious establishments, says, 
" Reflection, we hope, in some, and time we are sure in all, 
will reconcile men to alterations established in reason. If 
there be any danger it is from some of the clergy, who would 
rather suffer the vineyard to be overgrown with weeds than stir 
the ground ; or, what is worse, call these weeds the fairest 
flowers in the garden." This is strong language : that which 
succeeds is stronger still. " If we are to wait for improve- 
ment till the cool, the calm, the discreet part of mankind begin 
it ; till church governors solicit, or ministers of state propose 
it, I will venture to pronounce, that (without His interposition 
with whom nothing is impossible) we may remain as we aro 
* Sir George Sackville. 

t Pari. Hist. v. 17. The petition, after all this, was rejected by two 
hundred and seventeen votes against seventy-one. Can any thing more 
clearly indicate the fear of reforming? — a fear that extends itself to the 
state, because the state thinks (with reason or without it) that to endan- 
ger the stability of the church were to endanger its own. 

t The Confessional. § Simpson's Flea. 



40 



470 



RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS OF [ESSAY III. 



till the renovation of all things."* Why " church governors" 
and " ministers of state" should be so peculiarly backward to 
improve, is easily known. Ministers of state are more anx- 
ious for the consolidation of their power than for the amend- 
ment of churches ; and church governors are more anxious 
to benefit themselves by consolidating that power, than to 
reform the system of which they are the heads. But let no 
man anticipate that we shall indeed remain as we are till the 
renovation of all things. The work will be done though these 
may refuse to do it. " If," says a statesman, " the friends of 
the church, instead of taking the lead in a mild reform of 
abuses, contend obstinately for their protection, and treat 
every man as an enemy who aims at reform, they will cer- 
tainty be overpowered at last, and the correction applied by 
those who will apply it with no sparing hand?\ If these de- 
clarations be true (and who will even question their truth ?) 
we may be allowed, without any pretensions to extraordinary 
sagacity, to add another : that to these unsparing correctors 
the work will assuredly be assigned. How infatuated, then, 
the policy of refusing reformation even if policy only were 
concerned ! 



The next point in which the effect of the state alliance 
is injurious to the church itself, is by its effects upon the 
ministry. 

It is manifest that where there are such powerful motives 
of interest to assume the ministerial office, and where there 
are such facilities for the admission of unfit men — unfit men 
will often be admitted. Human nature is very stationary ; 
and kindred results arose very many centuries ago. " The 
attainments of the clergy in the first ages of the Anglo-Saxon 
church were very considerable. But a great and total degen- 
eracy took place during the latter years of the Heptarchy, 
and for two generations after the union of its kingdoms." 
And why ? Because " mere worldly views operated upon a 
great proportion of them ; no other way of life offered so fair 
a prospect of power to the ambitious, of security to the pru- 
dent, of tranquillity and ease to the easy-minded. "J — Such 
views still operate, and they still produce kindred effects. 

It is manifest, that if men undertake the office of Christian 

* A Defence of the Considerations on the propriety of requiring a sub- 
scription to Articles of Faith. By Dr. Paley: p. 35. 

t Letters on the subject of the British and Foreign Bible Society, by 
the present Lord Bexley. 

t Southey : Book of the Church, c. G. 



CHAP. XV.] 



ENGLAND AND IRELAND. 



471 



teachers not from earnestness in the cause, but from the desire 
of profit or power or ease, the office will frequently be ill dis- 
charged. Persons who possess little of the Christian minis- 
ter but the name, will undertake to guide the flock ; and hence 
it is inevitable that the ministry, as a body, will become re- 
duced in the scale of religious excellence. So habitual is 
' the system of undertaking the office for the sake of its emolu- 
ments, that men have begun to avow the motive and to defend 
it. " It is no reproach to the church to say that it is supplied 
with ministers by the emoluments it affords. "* Would it not 
have been a reproach to the first Christian churches, or could 
it have been said of them at all ? Does he who enters the 
church for the sake of its advantages, enter it " of a ready 
mind?" — But the more lucrative offices of the church are 
talked of with much familiarity as " prizes," much in the 
same manner as we talk of prizes in a lottery. " The same 
fund produces more effect — when distributed into prizes of 
different value than when divided into equal shares. "f This 
" effect" is described-as being " both an allurement to men of 
talents to enter into the church, and as a stimulus to the in- 
dustry of those who are already in it." But every man knows 
that talent and industry are not the only nor the chief things 
which obtain for a person the prizes of the church. There 
is more of accuracy in the parallel passage of another moral- 
ist. " The medical profession does not possess so many 
splendid prizes as the church and the bar, and on that account^ 
perhaps, is rarely, if ever, pursued by young men of noble 
families."^ Here is the point : it is rather to noble families 
than to talent and industry, that the prizes are awarded. 
There are, indeed, rich preferments, but these, it is observed, 
do not usually fall to merit as the reward of it, but are lavished 
where interest and family connexion put in their irresistible 
claim."^ That plain-speaking man Bishop Warburton writes 
to his friend Hurd, " Reckon upon it, that Durham goes to 
some noble ecclesiastic. 'Tis a morsel only for them."|| It 
is manifest that when this language can be appropriate, the 
office of the ministry must be dishonoured and abused. Re- 
specting the priesthood, it is acknowledged that " the charac- 
ters of men are formed much more by the temptations than 
the duties of their profession."^ Since then the temptations 
are worldly, what is to be expected but that the character 
should be worldly too 1 — >Nor would any thing be gained by 

* Knox's Essays, No. 18. t Mor. and Pol. Phil.'b. 6, c. 10. 

% Gisborne's Duties of Men. § Knox's Essays, No. 53. 

jl Warburton's Letters to Hurd, No. 47. IT Mor. and Pol. Phil. p. 266. 



472 



RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS OF [ESSAY III. 



the dexterous distinction that I have somewhere met with, 
that although the motive for " taking the oversight of the 
flock" be indeed " lucre," yet it does not come under the apos- 
tolical definition of " filthy." 

Of the eventual consequences of thus introducing unquali- 
fied, and perhaps irreligious, nobles into the government of 
the church, Bishop Warburton speaks in strong language. 
" Our grandees have at last found their way back into the 
church. I only wonder they have been so long about it. 
But be assured that nothing but a new religious revolution, to 
sweep away the fragments that Harry the VIII. left after 
banqueting his courtiers, will drive them out again."* When 
that revolution shall come which will sweep away these 
prizes, it will prove not only to these but to other things to be 
a besom of destruction. 

If the fountain be bitter, the current cannot be sweet. 
The principles which too commonly operate upon the digni- 
taries of the church, descend, in some degree, to the inferior 
ranks. I say in some degree ; for I do.not believe that the 
degree is the same or so great. Nor is it to be expected. 
The temptation which forms the character, is diminished in its 
power, and the character, therefore may rise. 

I believe that (reverently be it spoken) through the goodness 
of God, there has been produced since the age of Hartley, a 
considerable improvement in the general character (at least 
of the inferior orders) of the English clergy. In observing 
the character which he exhibited, let it be remembered that 
that character was the legitimate offspring of the state re- 
ligion. The subsequent amendment is the offspring of another, 
and a very different, and a purer parentage. " The superior 
clergy are in general ambitious, and eager in the pursuit of riches ; 
flatterers of the great, and subservient to party interest ; neg- 
ligent of their own immediate charges, and also of the in- 
ferior clergy and their immediate charges. The inferior 
clergy imitate their superiors, and, in general, take little more 
care of their parishes than barely what is necessary to avoid, 
the censures of the law. — I say this is the general case ; that 
is, far the greater part of the clergy of all ranks in this king- 
dom are of this kind."t — These miserable effects upon the 
character of the clergy are the effects of a Religious Estab- 
lishment. If any man is unwilling to admit the truth, let him 
adduce the instance of an unestahlished church, in the past 
eighteen hundred years, in which such a state of things has 

* W arburton's Letters to Hurd, No. 47. t Hartley : Observations 
on man. 



CHAP. XV.] 



ENGLAND AND IRELAND. 



473 



existed. Of the times of Gregory Nazianzen, Bishop Burnet 
says — " The best men of that age, instead of pressing into 
orders or aspiring to them, fled from them, excused themselves, 
and judging themselves unworthy of so holy a character and 
so high a trust, were not without difficulty prevailed upon to 
submit to that which, in degenerate ages, men run to as a sub- 
sistence or the means of procuring it."* 

It might almost be imagined that the right of private pat- 
ronage was allowed for the express purpose of deteriorating 
the character of the ministers of religion — because it can 
hardly be supposed that any church would allow such a sys- 
tem without a perfect consciousness of its effects. To allow 
any man or woman, good or bad, who has money to spend, to 
purchase the power of assigning a Christian minister to a 
Christian flock, is one of those desperate follies and enormi- 
ties which should never be spoken of but in the language of 
detestation and horror.f A man buys an advowson as he 
buys an estate, and for the same motives. He cares perhaps 
nothing for the religious consequences of his purchase, or for 
the religious assuidity of the person to whom he presents it- 
Nay, the case is worse than that of buying as you buy an es- 
tate ; for land will not repay the occupier unless he cultivates 
it — but the living is just as profitable whether he exerts him- 
self zealously or not. He who is unfit for the estate by want 
of industry or of talent, is nevertheless fit for the living! 
These are dreadful and detestable abuses. Christianity is 
not to be brought into juxtaposition with such things. It 
were almost a shame to allow a comparison. " Who is not 
aware that, in consequence of the prevalence of such a sys- 
tem, the holy things of God are often visibly profaned ?"J — " It 
is our firm persuasion, that the present system of bestowing 
church patronage is hastening the decay of morals, the pro- 
gress of insubordination, and the downfall of the establishment 
itself." Morality and subordination have happily other sup- 
ports : — the fate of the establishment is sealed. I say sealed. 
It cannot perpetually stand without thorough reformation; 
and it cannot be reformed while it remains an establishment. 

* Disc, of the Pastoral Care, 12th ed. p. 77. " Under Lanfranc's 
primacy no promotion in the church was to be obtained by purchase, nei- 
ther was any unfit person raised to the episcopal rank."* 

t Upon such persons " rests the awful responsibility (I might almost 
call it the divine prerogative) of assigning a flock to the shepherd, and of 
selecting a shepherd for the flock." Gurney's Peculiarities, 3d. ed. p. 164. 

X Christian Observer, v. 20, p. 11. 



" Southey ; Book of the Church, chap. 7. 



474 



RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS OF [ESSAY III. 



Another mode in which the state religion of England is inju- 
rious to the character of its ministers, is by its allowance and prac- 
tical encouragement of non-residence and pluralities. These 
are the natural effects of the principles of the system. It is 
very possible that there should be a state religion without 
them ; but if the alliance with the state is close — if a princi- 
pal motive in the dispensation of benefices is the promotion 
of political purposes— if the prizes of the church are given 
where interest and family connexions put in their claim — it 
becomes extremely natural that several preferments should be 
bestowed upon one person. And when once this is counte- 
nanced or done by the state itself, inferior patrons will as nat- 
urally follow the example. The prelate who receives from 
the state three or four preferments, naturally gives to his son 
or his nephew three or four if he can. 

Pluralities and non-residence, whatever may be said in 
their favour by politicians or divines, will always shock the 
common sense and the virtue of mankind. Unhappily, they are 
evils which seem to have increased. " Theodore, the seventh 
archbishop of Canterbury, restricted the bishops and secular 
clergy to their own dioceses ;" and no longer ago than the 
reign of James I., " when pluralities were allowed, which 
was to be as seldom as possible, the livings were to be near 
each other."* But now we hear of one dignitary who possesses 
ten different preferments, and of another who, with an annual 
ecclesiastical revenue of fifteen thousand pounds, did not 
see his diocese for many years together.! And as to that 
proximity of livings which was directed in James's time, they 
are now held in plurality not only at a distance from each 
other, but so as that the duties cannot be performed by one 
person. J 

Of the moral character of this deplorable custom, it is not 
necessary that we should speak. " I do not enter," says an 
eminent prelate, " into the scandalous practices of non-resi- 
dence and pluralities. This is so shameful a profanation of 
holy things, that it ought to be treated with detestation and 
horror. "§ Another friend of the church says, "He who 
grasps at the revenue of a benefice, and studies to evade the 

* Southey : Book of the Church, c. 6. 

t For these examples see Simpson's Plea. I say nothing of present 
examples. 

X Here it may he observed how imperfect is the argument (see Paley,) 
that a religious establishment does good by keeping an enlightened man 
in each parish. Mem. in the MS. 

§ Burnett : Hist. Own Times, v. 2, p. 646. 



CHAP. XV.] 



ENGLAND AND IRELAND. 



475 



personal discharge of the various functions which that reve- 
nue is intended to reward, and the performance of those mo- 
mentous duties to God and man, which, by accepting the 
living, he has undertaken, evinces either a most reprehensi- 
ble neglect of proper consideration, or a callous depravity of 
heart."* It may be believed that all are not thus depraved 
who accept pluralities without residence. Custom, although 
it does not alter the nature of actions, affects the character of 
the agent ; and although I hold no man innocent in the sight 
of God who supports, in his example, this vicious practice, 
yet some may do it now with a less measure of guilt than that 
which would have attached to him who first, for the sake of 
money, introduced tho scandal into the church. 

The public has now the means of knowing, by the returns 
to Parliament, the extent in which these scandalous customs 
exist — an extent which, when it was first communicated to 
the Earl of Harrowby, " struck me." says he, " with sur- 
prise, I could almost say with horror." Alas, when temporal 
peers are horror-struck by the scandals that are tolerated and 
practised by their spiritual teachers ! 

By one of these returns it appears that the whole number 
of placesf is ten thousand two hundred and sixty-one. Of 
the possessors of these livings, more than one half were non- 
resident. The number of residents was only four thousand 
four hundred and twenty-one. — But the reader will perhaps 
say, What matters the residence of him who receives the mo- 
ney, so that a curate resides 1 Unfortunately, the proportion 
of absentee curates is still greater than that of incumbents. 
Out of three thousand six hundred and ninty-four who are em- 
ployed, only one thousand five hundred and eighty-seven live 
in the parishes they serve ; so that two thousand one hundred 
and seven parishes aft left without even the residence of a 
curate. Besides this, there are nine hundred and seventy in- 
cumbents who neither live in their parishes themselves nor 
employ any curate at all ! What is the result 1 That above 
one half of those who receive the stipends of the church, live 
away from their flocks ; and that there are in this country 
three thousand and seventy-seven flocks amongst whom no 
shepherd is to be found ! — When it is considered that all this 
is a gratuitous addition to the necessary evils of state re- 

* Gisborne : Duties of Men. 

t The diocese of St. David's is not included, and the return includes 
some dignities, sinecures, and dilapidated churches. It cites that of 1810. 
I do not know but the details are substantially the same at the present 
time. 



476 



RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS OF [ESSAY III. 



ligions, that there may be established churches without it, 
it speaks aloud of those mischiefs of our establishments which 
are peculiarly its own, 

One other consideration upon this subject remains. An in- 
ternal discipline in a church, both over its ministers and its 
members, appears essential to the proper exercise of Christian 
duty. From what cause does it happen that there is little ex- 
ercise of discipline, or none, in the church of England ? The 
reader will perhaps answer the question to himself : " The 
exercise of efficient discipline in the church is impossible ;" 
and he would answer truly. It is impossible. Who shall 
exercise it ? The first Lord of the Treasury ? He will not, 
and he cannot. The Bench of Bishops ? Alas ! there is the 
origin of a great portion of the delinquency. If they were to 
establish a discipline, the first persons upon whom they must 
exercise it would be themselves. Who ever heard of per- 
sons, so situated, instituting or re-establishing a discipline in 
the church? WTio then shall exercise it? The subordinate 
clergy ? If they have the will, they have not the power ; and 
if they had the power, who can hope that they would use it ? 
Who can hope that, whilst above half of these clergy are non- 
residents, they will erect a discipline by which residence 
shall be enforced ? — I say, discipline, efficient discipline is 
impossible; and I submit it to the reader whether any Estab- 
lishment in which Christian Discipline is impossible, is not 
essentially bad. 

From the contemplation of these effects of the English es- 
tablishment upon its formularies, its ministers, and its disci- 
pline, we must turn to its effects generally upon the religious 
welfare of the people. 

This welfare is so involved with th^ general character of 
the establishment and its ministers, that to exhibit an evil in 
one is to illustrate an injury to the other. If the operation of 
the state religion prevents ministers from inculcating some 
portions of divine truth, its operation must indeed be bad. 
And how stands the fact ? " Aspiring clergymen, wishing to 
avoid every doctrine which would retard their advancement, 
were very little inclined to preach the reality or necessity of 
divine influence."* The evil which this indicates is twofold : 
first, the vicious state of the heads of the church ; for why else 
should " advancement" be refused to those who preached the doc- 
trine of the gospel; — and next, the injury to religion; for reli- 
gion must needs be injured if a portion of its truths are concealed. 
* Vicessimus Knox : Christian philosophy, 3d edition, p 24. 



CHAP. XV.] ENGLAND AND IRELAND. 



477 



Another quotation gives a similar account : " Regular divines 
of great virtue, learning and apparent piety, feared to preach 
the Holy Ghost and his operations, the main doctrines of the 
Gospel, lest they should countenance the puritan, the quaker, 
or the methodist, and lose the esteem of their own order or of 
the higher powers."* Did Paul or Barnabas ever " fear to 
preach the main doctrines of the gospel " from considerations 
like these, or from any considerations whatever ? Did our 
Lord approve or tolerate such fear when he threatened with 
punishment any man who should take away from the words 
of his book 1 But why again should the clerical order or the 
higher powers disesteem the man who preached the main 
doctrines of the gospel, unless it were from motives of interest 
founded in the establishment ? 

And thus it is, that they who are assumed to be the reli- 
gious leaders of the people, who ought, so far as is in their 
power, to guide the people into all truth, conceal a portion of 
that truth from motives of interest ! If this concealment is 
practised by men of great virtue, learning, and apparent piety, 
what are we to expect in the indifferent or the bad ! We are 
to expect that not one but many doctrines of the gospel will be 
concealed. We are to expect that discourses not very differ- 
ent from those which Socrates might have delivered will be 
dispensed, instead of the whole counsel of God. What has 
been the fact ? Of " moral preaching," Bishop Lavington 
says, " We have long been attempting the reformation of the 
nation by discourses of this kind. With what success 1 
None at all. On the contrary, we have dexterously preached 
the people into downright infidelity." Will any man affirm 
that this has not been the consequence of the state religion ? 
Will any man, knowing this, affirm that a state religion is right 
or useful to Christianity ? 

But as to the tendency of the system to diffuse infidelity, 
we are not possessed of the testimony of Bishop Lavington 
alone. " It is evident that the worldly-mindedness and neglect 
of duty in the clergy, is a great scandal to religion, and cause 
of infidelity."! Again : " Who is to blame for the spread of 
infidelity ? The bishops and clergy of the land more than 
any other people in it. We, as a body of men, are almost 
solely and exclusively culpable. "J Ostervald, in his " Trea- 
tise concerning the Causes of the present Corruption of Chris- 
tians," makes the same remark of the clergy of other churches ; 
■ — " The cause of the corruption of Christians is chiefly to be 

* Vicessimus Knox: Christian Philosophy, 3d edition, p. 23. 

t Hartley : Observations on Man. t Simpson's Plea, 3d edit. p. 76. 



478 



RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS OF [ESSAY III. 



found in the clergy." Now, supposing this to be the language 
of exaggeration — supposing that they corrupt Christians only 
as much as men who make no peculiar pretensions to religion 
> — how can such a fact be accounted for, but by the conclu- 
sion that there is something corrupting in the clerical system ? 

The refusal to amend the constitution or formularies of the 
church, is another powerful cause of injury to religion. Of 
one particular article — the Athanasian creed — a friend of the 
church, and one who mixed with the world, says, " I really 
believe that creed has made more deists than all the writings 
of all the oppugners of Christianity, since it was first unfor- 
tunately adopted in our liturgy."* Would this deist-making 
document have been retained till now if the church were not 
allied to the state 1 — Bishop Watson uses language so unspa- 
ring, that just and true as it is, I know not whether I would 
cite it from any other pen than a bishop's : " A motley mon- 
ster of bigotry and superstition — a scarecrow of shreds and 
patches, dressed up of old by philosophers and popes to amuse 
the speculative, and to affright the ignorant." Do I quote 
this because it is the unsparing language of truth 1 No ; but 
because of that which succeeds it : " Now" says the bishop, 
" a butt of scorn, against which every unfledged witling of the 
age essays his wanton efforts, and, before he has learned his 
catechism, is fixed an infidel for life ! This I am persuaded 
is too frequently the case, for I had too frequent opportunities 
to observe it."f If, by the church as it subsists, many are 
fixed infidels for life, how diffusively must be spread that mi- 
nor, but yet practical disrespect for religion, which, though it 
amounts not to infidelity, makes religion an unoperative thing 
— unoperative upon the conduct and the heart — unoperative 
in animating the love and hope of the Christian — unoperative 
in supporting under affliction, and in smoothing and brightening 
the pathway to the grave ! 

To these minor consequences also we have unambiguous 
testimony : " Where there is not this open and shameless dis- 
avowal of religion, few traces of it are to be found. Improving 
in every other branch of knowledge, we have become less 
and less acquainted with Christianity. "| — Two-thirds of the 
lower order of people in London," says Sir Thomas Bernard, 
" live as utterly ignorant of the doctrines and duties of Chris- 
tianity, and are as arrant and unconverted pagans, as if they 
had existed in the wildest part of Africa." — " The case," con- 

* Observations on the Liturgy, by an Under Secretary of State, 
t Misc. Tracts by Watson, Bishop of Landaff. v. 2, p. 49. 
t Wilberforce : Practical View, 6th edit. p. 389. 



CHAP. XV.] 



ENGLAND AND IRELAND. 



479 



tinues the Quarterly Review, "is the same in Manchester, 
Leeds, Bristol, Sheffield, and in all our large towns. The 
greatest part of the manufacturing populace, of the miners, 
and colliers, are in the same condition ; and if they are not 
universally so, it is more owing to the zeal of the methodists 
than to any other cause."* How is it accounted for, that in a 
country in which a teacher is appointed to diffuse Christianity 
in every parish, a considerable part of the population are con- 
fessed to be absolute pagans? How, especially is it accounted 
for, that the few who are reclaimed from paganism, are re- 
claimed, not by the established, but by an unestablished 
church 1 It is not difficult to account for all this, if the con- 
dition of the established church is such as to make what fol- 
lows the flippant language of a clergyman who afterwards 
was a bishop: "The person I engaged in the summer," as a 
curate, " is run away; as you will think natural enough, when 
I tell you he was let out of jail to be promoted to this service."! 

The ill effect of non-residence upon the general interests 
of religion is necessarily great. A conscientious clergyman 
finds that the offices of his pulpit are not the half of his busi- 
ness : he finds that he can often do more in promoting the re- 
ligious welfare of his parishioners out of his pulpit than in it. 
It is out of his pulpit that he evinces and exercises the most 
unequivocal affection for his charge ; that he encourages or 
warns as individuals have need ; that he animates by the 
presence of his constant example ; that he consoles them in 
their troubles ; that he adjusts their disagreements ; that he 
assists them by his advice. It is by living amongst them, and 
by that alone, that he can be " instant in season, and out of 
season," or that he can fulfil the duties which his station in- 
volves. How prodigious, then, must be the sum of mischief 
which the non-residence of three thousand clergymen inflicts 
upon religion ! How yet more prodigious must be the sum 
of mischief which results from that negligence of duty of 
which non-residence is but one effect ! Yet all this is occa- 
sioned by our religious establishment. " The total absence 
of non-residence and pluralities in the Church of Scotland, 
and the annual examination of all the inhabitants of the parish 
by its minister, are circumstances highly advantageous to re- 
ligion^ 

The minister in the English church is under peculiar dis_ 
advantages in enforcing the truths or the duties of religion 

* Quarterly Review, April 1816, p. 233. 

t Letters between Bishop Warburton and Bishop Hurd. 

\ Gisborne : Duties of Men. 



480 



RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS OF [ESSAY III. 



upon irreligious or sceptical men. Many of the topics which 
such men urge are directed, not against Christianity, but against 
that exhibition of Christianity which is afforded by the church. 
It has been seen that this is the cause of infidelity. How then 
shall the established clergyman efficiently defend our religion 1 
He may indeed confine himself to the vindication of Chris- 
tianity without reference to a church ; but then he does not 
defend that exhibition of Christianity which his own church 
affords. The sceptic presses him with those things which it 
is confessed are wrong. He must either defend them, or give 
them up as indefensible. If he defends them, he confirms the 
sceptic in his unbelief ; if he gives them up, he declares not 
only that the church is in the wrong, but that himself is in the 
wrong too ; and in either case, his fitness for an advocate of 
our religion is impaired. 

Hitherto, I have enforced the observations of this chapter 
by the authority of others. Now, I have to appeal for con- 
firmation to the experience of the reader himself. That pe- 
culiar mode of injury to the cause of virtue, of which I speak 
has received its most extensive illustrations during the pres- 
ent century ; and it has hitherto, perhaps, been the subject 
rather of private remark than of public disquisition. I refer 
to a sort of instinctive recoil from new measures tfeat are de- 
signed to promote the intellectual, the moral, or the religious 
improvement of the public. I appeal to the experience of 
those philanthropic men who spend their time either in their 
own neighbourhoods, or in " going about doing good," whether 
they do not meet with a greater degree of this recoil from 
works of philanthropy, amongst the teachers and members of 
the state religion than amongst other men — and whether this 
recoil is not the strongest amongst that portion who are re- 
puted to be the most zealous friends of the church. Has not 
this been your experience with respect to the Slave Trade 
and to Slavery — with respect to the education of the people 
— with respect to scientific or literary institutions for the la- 
bouring ranks — with respect to sending preachers to pagan 
countries — with respect to the Bible Society 1 Is it not famil- 
iar to you to be in doubt and apprehension respecting the as- 
sistance of these members of the establishment, when you have 
no fear and no doubt of the assistance of other Christians ? 
Do you not call upon others, and invite their co-operation with 
confidence ? Do you not call upon these with distrust, and 
is not that distrust the result of your previous experience 1 

Take, for example, that very simple institution, the Bible 
Society — simple, because its only object is, to distribute the 



CHAP. XV.] 



ENGLAND AND IRELAND. 



481 



authorized records of the dispensations of God. It is an in- 
stitution upon which it may be almost said, that but one opinion 
is entertained — that of its great utility : but one desire is felt 
— that of co-operation, except by the members of established 
churches. From this institution the most zealous advocates 
of the English church stand aloof. Whilst Christians of other 
names are friendly almost to a man, the proportion is very 
large of those churchmen who show no friendliness. It were 
to no purpose to say that they have claims peculiarly upon 
themselves, for so have other Christians — claims which gen- 
erally are complied with to a greater extent. Besides, it is 
obvious that these claims are not the grounds of the conduct 
that we deplore. If they were, we should still possess the 
cordial approbation of these persons — their personal, if not 
their pecuniary support. From such persons silence and ab- 
sence are positive discouragement. How then are we to ac- 
count for the phenomenon % By the operation of a state re- 
ligion. For when our philanthropist applies to the members 
of another church, their only question perhaps is, Will the 
projected institution be useful to mankind ? But when he ap- 
plies to such a member of the state religion, he considers, 
How will it affect the establishment ? — Will it increase the 
influence of dissenters ? — May it not endanger the immunities 
of the church ? — Is it countenanced by our superiors ? — Is it 
agreeable to the administration 1 And when all these consid- 
erations have been pursued, he very commonly finds some- 
thing that persuades him that it is most "prudent" not to 
encourage the proposition. It should be remarked too, as an 
additional indication of the cause of this recoil from works of 
goodness, that where the genius of the state religion is most 
influential, there is commonly the greatest backwardness in 
works of mental and religious philanthropy. The places of 
peculiar frigidity are the places in which there are the great- 
est number of the dignitaries of the church. 

Thus it is that the melioration of mankind is continually 
and greatly impeded, by the workings of an institution of which 
the express design is to extend the influence of religion and 
morality. Greatly impeded : for England is one of the prin- 
cipal sources of the current of human improvement, and in 
England the influence of this institution is great. These are 
fruits which are not borne by good and healthy trees. How 
can the tree be good of which these are the fruits 1 Are these 
fruits the result of episcopacy ? No, but of episcopacy wedded 
to the state. Were this union dissolved, (and the parties are 
not of that number whom God hath joined,) not only would 

41 



482 



RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS OF [ESSAY III. 



human reformation go forward with an accelerated pace, but 
episcopalianism itself would in some degree arise, and shake 
herself as from the dust of the earth. She would find that 
her political alliance has bound around her glittering but yet 
enslaving chains — chains which, hugged and cherished as 
they are, have ever fixed her, and ever will fix her, to the 
earth, and make her earthly. 

The mode in which the legal provision for the ministry is 
made in this country, contains, like many other parts of the 
institution, evils superadded to those which are necessarily 
incidental to a state religion. If there be any one thing which, 
more than another, ought to prevail between a Christian min- 
ister and those whom he teaches, it is harmony and kindli- 
ness of feeling : and this kindliness and harmony is peculiarly 
diminished by the system of Tithes. There is no circum- 
stance which so often " disturbs the harmony that should ever 
subsist between a clergyman and his parishioners as conten- 
tions respecting tithes."* Vicessimus Knox goes further: 
" One great cause of the clergy's losing their influence is, that 
the laity in this age of scepticism grudge them their tithes. 
The decay of religion and the contempt of the clergy arise in 
a great measure from this source."! What advantages can 
compensate for the contempt of Christian ministers and the 
decay of religion ? Or who does not perceive that a legal 
provision might be made which would be productive, so far 
as the new system of itself was concerned, of fewer evils ? — 
Of the political ill consequences of the tithe system I say no- 
thing here. If they were much less than they are, or if they 
did not exist at all, there is sufficient evidence against the 
system in its moral e'ffects. 

It is well known, and the fact is very creditable, that the 
clergy exact tithes with much less rigour;, and consequently 
occasion far fewer heartburnings, than lay claimants. The 
want of cordiality often results, too, from the cupidity of the 
payers, who invent vexatious excuses to avoid payment of 
the whole claim, and are on the alert to take disreputable ad- 
vantages. 

But to the conclusions of the Christian moralist it matters 
little by what agency a bad system operates. The principal 
point of his attention is the system itself. If it be bad, it will 
be sure to find agents by whom its pernicious principles will 
be elicited and brought into practical operation. It is therefore 
no extenuation of the system, that the clergy do not disagree 
with their parishioners : whilst it is a part of the system that 
* Gisborne: Duties of Men. t Essays, No. 10. 



CHAP. XV.] 



ENGLAND AND IRELAND. 



483 



Tithes are sold, and sold to him, of whatever character, who 
will give most for them — he will endeavour to make the most 
of them again. So that the evils which result from the Tithe 
system, although they are not chargeable upon religious estab- 
lishments, are chargeable upon our own, and are an evidence 
against it. The animosities which Tithe farmers occasion 
are attributable to the Tithe system. Ordinary men do not 
make nice discriminations. He who is angry with the Tithe 
farmer is angry with the rector, who puts the power of vexa- 
tion into his hands, and he who is out of temper with the 
teacher of religion loses some of his complacency in religion 
itself. You cannot then prevent the loss of harmony between 
the shepherd and his flock, the loss of his influence over their 
affections, the contempt of the clergy, and the decay of religion 
from Tithes. You must amend the civil institution, or you 
cannot prevent the religious mischief. 

Reviewing, then, the propositions and arguments which 
have been delivered in the present .chapter — propositions 
which rest upon the authority of the parties concerned, what 
is the general conclusion ? If Religious Establishments are 
constitutionally injurious to Christianity, is not our establish- 
ment productive of superadded and accumulated injury? Let 
not the writer of these pages be charged with enmity to 
religion because he thus speaks. Ah ! they are the best 
friends of the church who endeavour its amendment. I may 
be one of those who, in the language of Lord Bexley, shall 
be regarded as an enemy, because, in the exhibition of its 
evils, I have used great plainness of speech. But I can- 
not help it. I have other motives than those which are 
affected by these censures of men ; and shall be content 
to bear my portion, if I can promote that purification of a 
Christian Church, of which none but the prejudiced or 
the interested deny the need. They who endeavour to 
conceal the need may be the advocates, but they are not 
the friends of the church. The wound of the daughter 
pf my people may not be slightly healed. It is vain to 
cry Peace, Peace, when there is no peace. What then 
will the reader, who has noticed the testimonies which have 
been offered in this chapter, think of the propriety of such 
statements as these ? The " establishment is the firmest sup- 
port and noblest ornament of Christianity." * It " presents 
the best security under heaven for the preservation of the true 
* Dr. Howley, Bishop of London : Charge, 1814, p 25. 



484 



RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS xOF [ESSAY III. 



apostolical faith in this country." * " Manifold as are the 
blessings for which Englishmen are beholden to the in- 
stitutions of their country — there is no part of those institu- 
tions from which they derive more important advantages than 
from its church establishment." f Especially what will the 
reader think of the language of Hannah More ? — Hannah 
More says of the established church, " Here Christianity 
presents herself neither dishonoured, degraded, nor disfig- 
ured ;" Bishop Watson says of its creed, that it is " a motley 
monster of bigotry and superstition." Hannah More says, 
" Here Christianity is set before us in all her original purity ;" 
Archdeacon Blackburn says, that "the forms of the church, 
having been- weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, are 
found greatly wanting." Hannah More says, " She has been 
completely rescued from that encumbering load under which 
she had so long groaned, and delivered from her heavy bond- 
age by the labours of our blessed reformers ;" % Dr. Lowth 
says, that the reformation from Popery " stopped in the mid- 
way." Hannah More ,says, " We here see Christianity in 
her whole consistent character — in all her fair and just pro- 
portions — as she came from the hands of her divine author ;" 
Dr. Watson calls her creed " a scarecrow, dressed up of old 
by philosophers and Popes." To say that the language of 
this good woman is imprudent and improper, is to say very 
little. Yet I would say no more. Her own language is her 
severest censurer. When will it be sufficiently remembered 
that the evils of a system can neither be veiled nor defended 
by praise ? When will it be remembered that, if we " con- 
tend for abuses," the hour will arrive when " correction will 
be applied with no sparing hand ?" 

It has frequently been said, that the " church is in danger." 
What is meant by the church? Or what is it that is en- 
dangered ? Is it meant that the Episcopal form of church 
government is endangered — that some religious revolution 
is likely to take place, by which a Christian community shall 
be precluded from adopting that internal constitution which it 
thinks best? This surely cannot be feared. The day is 
gone by, in England at least, when the abolition of Prelacy 
could become a measure of state. One community has its 
conference, and another its annual assembly, and another its 

* On the Nature of Schism, by C. Daubeny, Archdeacon of Sarum, 
p. 153. 

t First words of Southey's Book of the Church. 
; Moral Sketches, 3d edit. p. 90. 



CHAP. XV.] ENGLAND AND IRELAND. 



485 



independency, without any molestation. Who, then, would mo- 
lest the English Church because it prefers the government of 
bishops and deacons to any other I Is it meant that the doctrines 
of the church are endangered, or that its liturgy will be prohib- 
ited? Surely no. Whilst every other church is allowed to 
preach what doctrines it pleases, and to use what formularies it 
pleases, the liberty will not surely be denied to the Episcopal 
church. If the doctrines and government of that church be 
Christian and true, there is no reason to fear for their stability. 
Its members have superabundant ability to defend the truth. 
What then is it that is endangered. Of what are those who 
complain of danger afraid ? Is it meant that its civil immu- 
nities are endangered — that its revenues are endangered ? Is 
it meant that its members will hereafter have to support their 
ministers without assistance from other churches ? Is it 
feared that there will cease to be such things as rich dean- 
eries and bishopricks ? Is it feared that the members of other 
churches will become eligible to the legislature, and that the 
heads of this church will not be temporal peers ? In brief, is 
it feared that this church will become merely one amongst 
the many, with no privileges but such as are common to good 
citizens and good Christians ? These surely are the things 
of which they are afraid. It is not for religious truth but for 
civil immunities : It is not for forms of church government, 
but for political pre-eminence : it is not for the church, but 
for the church establishment. Let a man, then, when he 
joins in the exclamation, The church is in danger ! present 
to his mind distinct ideas of his meaning and of the object of 
his fears. If his alarm and his sorrow . are occasioned, 
not for religion, but for politics — not for the purity and useful- 
ness of the church, but for its immunities — not for the offices 
of its ministers, but for their splendours — let him be at peace. 
There is nothing in all this for which the Christian needs to 
be in sorrow or in fear. 

And why? Because all that constitutes a church, as a 
Christian community, may remain when these things are 
swept away. There may be prelates without nobility ; there 
may be deans and archdeacons without benefices and patron- 
age ; there may be pastors without a legal provision ; there 
may be a liturgy without a test. 

In the sense in which it is manifest that the phrase, " the 
church is in danger," is ordinarily to be understood — that is, 
" the establishment is in danger" — the fears are undoubtedly 
well founded : the danger is real and imminent. It may not 
be immediate perhaps : perhaps it may not be near at hand ; 

41* 



486 



RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS OF [ESSAY III. 



but it is real, imminent, inevitable. The establishment is in- 
deed in danger; and I believe that no advocacy, however 
zealous, that no support, however determined, that no power, 
however great, will preserve it from destruction. If the dec- 
larations which have been cited in this chapter be true — 
if the reasonings which have been offered in this and in the 
last be just, who is the man that, as a Christian, regrets 
its danger, or would delay its fall 1 He may wish to delay it 
as a politician ; he may regret it as an expectant of temporal 
advantages ; but, as a Christian, he will rejoice. 

Supposing the doctrines and government of the church to 
be sound, it is probable that its stability would be increased 
by what is called its destruction. It would then only be 
detached from that alliance with the state which encumbers it, 
and weighs it down, and despoils its beauty, and obscures its 
brightness. Contention for this alliance will eventually be 
found to illustrate the proposition, that a man's greatest ene- 
mies are those of his own household. He is the practical 
enemy of the church who endeavours the continuance of its 
connexion with the state : except indeed that the more zealous 
the endeavour, the more quickly, it is probable, the connexion 
will be dissolved ; and therefore, though such persons " mean 
not so, neither do their hearts think so," yet they may thus 
be the agents, in the hand of God, of hastening the day in 
which she shall be purified from every evil thing ; in which 
she shall arise and shine, because her light is come, and 
because the glory of the Lord is risen upon her. 

Let him, then, who can discriminate between the church 
and its alliances, consider these things. Let him purify and 
exalt his attachment. If his love to the church be the love 
of a Christian, let him avert his eye from every thing that 
is political ; let his hopes -and fears be excited only by reli- 
gion ; and let his exertions be directed to that which alone 
ought to concern a Christian church, its purity and its useful- 
ness. 



In concluding a discussion, in which it has been needful to 
utter with plainness unwelcome truths, and to adduce testimo- 
nies which some readers may wish to be concealed, I am so- 
licitous to add the conviction, with respect to the ministers of 
the English Church, that there is happily a diminished ground 
of complaint and reprehension — the conviction that, whilst 
the liturgy is unamended and unrevised, the number of minis- 
ters is increased to whom temporal things are secondary mo- 
tives, and who endeavour to be faithful ministers of one com- 



CHAP. XV.] 



ENGLAND AND IRELAND. 



48T 



mon Lord : the conviction too, with respect to other members 
of the church, that they are collectively advancing in the 
Christian path, and that there is an " evident extension of re- 
ligion within her borders." Many of these, both of the teach- 
ers and of the taught are persons with whom the writer of 
these pages makes no pretensions of Christian equality — yet 
even to these he would offer one monitory suggestion — They 
are critically situated with reference to the political alliance 
of the church. Let them beware that they mingle not, with 
their good works and faith unfeigned, any confederacy with 
that alliance, which will assuredly be laid in the dust. That 
confederacy has ever had one invariable effect — to dimin- 
ish the Christian brightness of those who are its partizans. 
It will have the same effect upon them. If they are desirous 
of superadding to their Christianity the privileges and emolu- 
ments of a state religion — if they endeavour to retain in the 
church the interests of both worlds — if, together with their 
desire to serve God with a pure heart, they still cling to the 
advantages which this unholy alliance brings — and, contend- 
ing for the faith, contend also for the establishment — the ef- 
fect will be bad as the endeavour will be vain ; bad, for it will 
obstruct their own progress and the progress of others in the 
Christian path ; and vain, for the fate of that establishment is 
sealed. 

In making these joyful acknowledgments of the increase of 
Christianity within the borders of the church, one truth, how- 
ever, must be added ; and it is a solemn truth — The increase 
is not attributable to the state religion,, but has taken place 
notwithstanding it is a state religion. I appeal to the experi- 
ence of good men : has the amendment been the effect of the 
establishment as such ? Has the political connexion of the 
church occasioned the amendment or promoted it? Nay — 
Has the amendment been encouraged by those on whom the 
political connexion had the greatest influence 1 No : the 
reader, if he be an observer of religious affairs, knows that 
the state alliance is so far from having effected a reformation, 
that it does not even regard the instruments of that reforma- 
tion with complacency. 



488 



LEGAL PROVISION 



[ESSAY III. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

OF LEGAL PROVISION FOR CHRISTIAN TEACHERS— OF 
VOLUNTARY PAYMENT AND OF UNPAID MINISTRY. 

Compulsory payment— America — Legal provision for one church unjust 
— Payment of Tithes by dissenters — Tithes a " property of the 
church " — Voluntary payment — The system of remuneration — Qualifi- 
cations of a minister of the gospel — Unpaid ministry — Days of greater 
purity. 

If some of the observations of the present chapter are not 
accurately classed with political subjects, I have to offer the 
apology that the intimacy of their connexion with the precee- 
ding discussions, appears to afford a better reason for placing 
them here, than an adherence to system affords for placing 
them elsewhere. " The substance of method is often sacri- 
ficed to the exterior show of it." * 

LEGAL PROVISION. 

By one of those instances which happily are not unfrequent 
in the progress of human opinion from error to truth, the no- 
tion of a divine right on the part of any Christian teachers to 
a stated portion of the products of other men's labours, is now 
nearly given up.f There was a time when the advocate 
of the claim would have disdained to refer for its foundation 
to questions of expediency or the law of the land. And 
he probably as little thought that the divine right would ever 
have been given up by its advocates, as his successors now 

* Bishop Warburton. 

t Yet let it not be forgotten that it is upon this exploded notion of the 
divine right that the legal right is founded. The law did not give Tithes 
to the clergy because the provision was expedient, but because it was 
their divine right. It is upon this assumption that the law is founded. 
See Statues at Large ; 29 Hen. VIII. c. 20. Mem. in the MS. 

" The whole was received into a common fund, for the fourfold pur- 
pose of supporting the clergy, repairing the church, relieving the poor, 
and entertaining the pilgrim and the stranger." — "The payment of 
Tithes had at first been voluntary, though it was considered as a reli- 
gious obligation. King Ethelwolf, the father of Alfred, subjected the 
whole kingdom to it by a legislative act." Southey's book of the Church ; 
c. 6. Mem. in the MS. 

WicklifFe's followers asserted, " that Tithes were purely eleemosynary, 
and might be withheld by the people upon a delinquency in the pastor, 
and transferred to inother at pleasure." Brodie's history of the British 
Empire. Introduction. Mem. in the MS. 



CHAP. XVI.] FOR CHRISTIAN TEACHERS. 



489 



think that they have fallacious grounds in reasoning upon pub- 
lic utility. Thus it is that the labours of our predecessors in the 
cause of Christian purity ha ye taken a large portion of labour 
out of our hands. They carried the outworks of the citadel ; 
and whilst its defenders have retired to some inner strong- 
hold, it becomes the business of our day to essay the firmness 
of its walls. The writer of these pages may essay them in 
vain ; but he doubts not that before some power their defend- 
ers, as they have hitherto retired, will continue to retire, until 
the whole fortress is abandoned. Abandoned to the enemy ? 
Oh no. — He is the friend of a christian community, who in- 
duces Christian principles into its practice. 

In considering the evidence which Christianity affords re- 
specting the lawfulness of making a legal provision for one 
Christian church, I would not refer to those passages of 
Scripture which appear to bear upon the question, whether 
Christian ministrations should be absolutely free : partly, be- 
cause I can add nothing to the often urged tendency of those 
passages, and partly, because they do not all concern the 
question of legal provision. The man who thinks Christian- 
ity requires that those who labour in the gospel should live of 
the gospel, does not therefore think that a legal provision 
should be made for the ministers of one exclusive church. 

One thing seems perfectly clear — that to receive from their 
hearers and from those who heard them not, a compulsory 
payment for their preaching, is totally alien to all the prac- 
tices of the apostles, and to the whole tenor of the principles 
by which they were actuated. Their one single and simple 
motive in preaching Christianity, was to obey God, to do 
good to man ; nor do I believe that any man imagines it pos- 
sible that they would have accepted of a compulsory remune- 
ration from their own hearers, and especially from those who 
heard them not. We are therefore entitled to repeat the obser- 
vation, that this consideration affords evidence against the 
moral lawfulness of instituting such compulsory payment. 
Why would not, and could not, the apostles have accepted 
such payment, except for the reason that it ought not to be 
enforced ? No account, so far as I perceive, can be given of 
the matter, but that the system is contrary to the purity of 
Christian practice. 

An English prelate writes thus : " It is a question which 
might admit of serious discussion, whether the majority of 
the members of any civil community have a right to compel 
all the members of it to pay towards the maintenance of a 
set of teachers appointed by the majority to preach a particu- 



490 



LEGAL PROVISION 



[ESSAY III. 



lar system of doctrines."* No discussion could be enter- 
tained respecting this right, except on the ground of its Chris- 
tian unlawfulnsss. A legislature has a right to impose a 
general tax to support a government, whether a minority ap- 
proves the tax or not ; and the bishop here rightly assumes 
that there js an antecedent question — whether it is morally 
lawful to oblige men to pay teachers whom they disapprove 1 
It is from the want of taking this question into the ac- 
count, that inquirers have involved themselves in fallacious 
reasonings. It is not a question of the right of taxation, but 
of the right of the magistrate to oblige men to violate their 
consciences. Of those who have regarded it simply as a 
question of taxation, and who therefore have proceeded upon 
fallacious grounds, the author of the " Duties of Men in So- 
ciety" is one. He says, "If a state thinks that national 
piety and virtue will be best promoted by consigning the 
whole sum raised by law to teachers of a particular descrip- 
tion — it has the same right to adopt this measure, as it would 
have to impose a general tax for the support of a board of 
physicians, should it deem that step conducive to national 
health." Far other — No man's Christian liberty is invaded, 
no man's conscience is violated, by paying a tax to a board of 
physicians ; but many a man's religious liberty may be in- 
vaded, and many a man's conscience may be violated, by pay- 
ing for the promulgation of doctrines which he thinks Chris- 
tianity condemns. Whither will the argument lead us ? If 
a Papal state thinks it will promote piety to demand contri- 
butions for the splendid celebration of an auto-da-fe, would 
Protestant citizens act rightly in contributing ? Or would the 
state act rightly in demanding the contribution ? Or has a 
Bramin state a right to impose a tax upon Christian residents 
to pay for the fagots of Hindoo immolations ? The antece- 
dent question in all these cases is — Whether the immolation, 
and the -auto-da-fe, and the system of doctrines, are consistent 
with Christianity 1 If they are not, the citizen ought not to 
contribute to their practice or diffusion ; and by consequence, 
the state ought not to compel him to contribute. Now, for 

* See Quarterly Review, No. 58. 

" There was a party in the nation who conceived that every man 
should not only be allowed to choose his own religion, but contribute as 
he himself thought proper towards the support of the pastor whose duties 
he exacted. The party however, does not appear to have been great. 
Yet let us not despise the opinion, but remember that it has been taken 
up by Dr. Adam Smith himself as a sound one, and been acted upon 
successfully in a vast empire, the United States of America." — Brodie's 
History of the British Empire, v. 4, p. 365. Mem. in the MS, 



CHAP. XVI.] FOR CHRISTIAN TEACHERS. 



491 



the purposes of the present argument, the consistency of any 
set of doctrines with Christianity cannot be proved. It is to 
no purpose for the Unitarian to say, My system is true ; nor 
for the Calvinist or Arminian or Episcopalian to say, My sys- 
tem is true. The Unitarian has no Christian right to compel 
me to pay him for preaching Unitarianism, nor has any reli- 
gious community a right to compel the members of another to 
pay him for promulgating his own opinions. 

If by any revolution in the religious affairs of this country, 
another sect was elevated to the pre-eminence, and its minis- 
ters supported by a legal provision, I believe that the minis- 
ters of the present church would think it an unreasonable and 
unchristian act to compel them to pay the preachers of the 
new state religion. Would not a clergyman think himself 
aggrieved, if he were obliged to pay a Priestley, and to aid 
in disseminating the opinions of Priestley ? — That same griev- 
ance is now inflicted upon other men. The rule is disre- 
garded, to do as we would be done by. 

Let us turn to the example of America. In America the 
government does not oblige its citizens to pay for the support 
of preachers. Those who join themselves to any particular 
religious community commonly contribute towards the support 
of its teachers, but there is no law of the state which com- 
pels it. This is as it should be. The government which 
obliged its citizens to pay, even if it were left to the individual 
to say to what class of preachers his money should be given, 
would act upon unsound principles. It may be that the citi- 
zen does not approve of paying ministers at all ; or there 
may be no sect in a country with which he thinks it right to 
hold communion. How would the reader himself be situated 
in Spain perhaps, or in Turkey, or in Hindostan 1 Would he 
think it right to be obliged to encourage Juggernaut, or Ma- 
homet, or the Pope ? 

But passing from this consideration : it is after all said, 
that in our own country the individual citizen does not pay 
the ministers of the state religion. I am glad that this seem- 
ing paradox is advanced, because it indicates that those who ad- 
vance it confess that to make them pay would be wrong. Why 
else should they deny it I It is said, then, that persons who 
pay tithes do not pay the established clergy ; that tithes are 
property held as a person holds an estate ; that if tithes were 
taken off, rents would advance to the same amount ; that the 
buyer of an estate pays so much the less for it because it is 
subject to tithes — and therefore that neither owner nor occu- 
pier pays any thing. This is specious, but only specious. 



492 



LEGAL PROVISION 



[ESSAY III. 



The landholder " pays" the clergyman just as he pays the 
tax-gatherer. If taxes were taken off, rents would advance 
just as much as if tithes were taken off ; and a person 
may as well say that he does not pay taxes as that he does 
not pay tithes. — The simple fact is, that an order of cler- 
gy are, in this respect, in the same situation as the body 
of stockholders who live upon their dividends. They are 
supported by the country. The people pay the stockholder 
in the form of taxes, and the clergyman in the form of 
tithes. Suppose every clergyman in England were to leave 
the country to-morrow, and to cease to derive any income 
from it, it is manifest that the income which they now derive 
would be divided amongst those who remain — that is, that 
those who now pay would cease to pay. Rent, and Taxes, 
and Tithes, are in these respects upon one footing. Without 
now enquiring whether they are right, they are all payments 
■ — something by which a man does not receive the whole of 
the product of his labour. 

The argument, therefore, which affirms that dissenters from 
the state religion do not pay to that religion, appears to be 
wholly fallacious ; and being such, we are at liberty to assume, 
that to make them pay is indefensible and unchristian. For 
we repeat the observation, that he who is anxious to prove 
they do not pay, evinces his opinion that to compel them to 
pay would be wrong. 

There is some injustice in the legal provision for one 
church. The episcopalian, when he has paid his teacher, or 
rather when he has contributed that portion towards the 
maintenance of his teacher which by the present system be- 
comes his share, has no more to pay. The adherent to 
other churches has to pay his own preacher and his neigh- 
bour's This does not appear to be just. The operation of 
a legal provision is, in effect, to impose a double tax upon one 
portion of the community without any fault on their part. 
Nor is it to any purpose to say, that the dissenter from the 
episcopalian church imposes the tax on himself ; so he does ; 
but it is just in the same sense as a man imposes a penalty 
upon himself when he conforms to some prohibited point of 
Christian duty. A papist, two or three centuries ago, might 
almost as well have said that a protestant imposed the stake 
on himself, because he might have avoided it if he chose. 
It is a voluntary task in no other way than as all other taxes 
are voluntary. It is a tax imposed by the state as truly as 
the window tax is imposed, because a man may, if he pleases, 



CHAP. XVI.] FOR CHRISTIAN TEACHERS. 



493 



live in darkness ; or as a capitation tax is imposed, because 
a man may, if he pleases, lose his head. 

But what is he who conscientiously disapproves of a state 
religion to do V Is he, notwithstanding his judgment, to aid 
in supporting that religion, because the law requires it ? No : 
for then, as it respects him, the obligation of the law is taken 
away. He is not to do what he believes Christianity forbids, 
because the state commands it. If public practice be a cri- 
terion for the public judgment, it may be concluded that the 
number of those who do thus believe respecting our state re- 
ligion, is very small; for very few decline actively to support 
it. Yet when it is considered how numerous the dissenters 
from the English establishment are, and how emphatically 
some of them disapprove the forms or doctrines of that estab- 
lishment, it might be imagined that the number who decline 
thus to support it would, in consistency, be great. How are 
we to account for the fact a-s it is 1 Are we to suppose that 
the objections of these persons to the establishment are such 
as do not make it a case of conscience whether they shall sup- 
port it or not ? Or are we to conclude that they sacrifice 
their consciences to the terrors of a distraint ? If no case of 
conscience is involved, the dissenter, though he may think the 
state religion inexpedient, can hardly think it wrong. And 
if he do not think it wrong, why should he be so zealous in 
opposing it, or why should he expect the church to make con- 
cessions in his favour ? If, on the other hand, he sacrifices 
his conscience to his fears, it is obvious that, before he^repre- 
hends the establishment, he should rectify himself. He 
should leave the mote, till he has taken out the beam. 

Perhaps there are some who, seriously disapproving of the 
state religion, suspect that in Christian integrity they ought 
not to pay to its support — and yet are not so fully convinced 
of this, or do not so fully act upon the conviction, as really to 
decline to pay. If they are convinced let them remember 
their responsibility, and not know their Master's will in 
vain. If these are not faithful, where shall fidelity be found ? 
How shall the Christian churches be purified from their de- 
filements, if those who see and deplore their defilements, 
contribute to their continuance 1 Let them show that their 
principles are worthy a little sacrifice. Fidelity on their part, 
and a Christian submission to the consequences, might open 
the eyes and invigorate the religious principle of many more ; 
and at length the objection to comply with these unchristian 
demands might be so widely extended, that the legislature 
would be induced to withdraw its legal provision ; and thus 

42- 



494 



LEGAL PROVISION 



[ESSAY III. 



one main constituent of an ecclesiastical system, which has 
grievously obstructed, and still grievously obstructs, the Chris- 
tian cause, might be taken away. 

As an objection to this fidelity of practice it has been said, 
that since a man rents or buys an estate for so much less be- . 
cause it is subject to tithes, it is an act of dishonesty after- 
wards, to refuse to pay them. The answer is this — that no 
dishonesty can be committed whilst the law exacts payment 
by distraint ; and if the law were altered, there is no place 
for dishonesty. Besides, the desire of saving money does 
not enter into the refuser's motives. He does not decline to 
pay from motives of interest, but from motives of duty. 

It is, however, argued that the legislature has no right to 
take away tithes any more than it has a right to deprive citi- 
zens of their lands and houses ; and that a man's property in 
tithes is upon a footing with his property in an estate. Now 
we answer that this is not true in fact ; and that, if it were, 
it would not serve the argument. 

It is not true in fact.-r— If tithes were a property, just as an es- 
tate is a property, why do men complain of the scandal of plural- 
ities % Who ever hears of the scandal of possessing three or four 
estates 1 Why, again, does the law punish simoniacal con- 
tracts ? Who ever hears of simoniacal contracts for lands and 
houses ? The truth is, that tithes are regarded as religious pro- 
perty. The property is legally recognised, not for the sake of 
the individual who may possess it, but for the^sake of religion. 
The la"w cares nothing for the men, except so far as they are 
ministers. Besides, tithes are a portion of the produce only of 
the land. The tithe-owner cannot walk over an estate, and say 
of every tenth acre this is mine. In truth he has not, except 
by consent of the landholder, any property in it at all ; for 
the landholder may, if he pleases, refuse to cultivate it — oc- 
casion it to produce nothing ; and then the tithe-owner has 
no interest or property in it whatever. And in what sense 
can that be said to be property, the possession of which is at 
the absolute discretion of another man ? 

But grant, for a moment, that tithes are property. Is it af- 
firmed that whatever property a man possesses, cannot be 
taken from him by the legislature ? Suppose I go to Jamaica 
and purchase a slav^e, and bring him to England, has the law 
no right to take this property away ? Assuredly it has the 
right, and it exercises it too. Now, so far as the argument is 
concerned, the cases of the slave-holder and of the tithe- 
owner are parallel. Compulsory maintenance of Christian 
ministers, and compulsory retention of men in bondage, are 



CHAP. XVI.] FOR CHRISTIAN TEACHERS. 



495 



both inconsistent with Christianity ; and as such, the property 
which consists in slaves and in tithes, may rightly be taken 
away — unless, indeed, any man will affirm that any property, 
however acquired, cannot lawfully be taken from the pos- 
sessor. But when we speak of taking away the property in 
tithes, we do not refer to the consideration that it has been 
under the sanction of the law itself that the property has 
been purchased or obtained. The law has, in reality, been 
accessory to the offence, and it would not be decent or right 
to take away the possession which has resulted from that of- 
fence without offering an equivalent. I would not advise a 
legislature to say to those persons who, under its own sanc- 
tion, have purchased slaves, to turn upon them and say, I am 
persuaded that slavery is immoral, and therefore I command 
you to set your slaves at liberty ; — and because you have no 
moral right to hold them, I shall not grant you a compensa- 
tion. Nor, for the same reasons, would I advise a legislature 
to say so to the possessor of tithes. 

But what sort of a compensation is to be offered ? Not 
surely an amount equivalent to the principal money, compu- 
ting tithes as interest. The compensation is for life interest 
only. The legislature would have to buy off, not a freehold 
but an annuity. The tithe-owner is not like the slaveholder, 
who can bequeath his property to another. When the pres- 
ent incumbent dies, the tithes, as property, cease to exist — 
until it is agai* appropriated to an incumbent by the patron 
of the living. This is true except in the instances of those 
deplorable practices, the purchase of advowsons, or of any 
other by which individuals or bodies acquire a pecuniary in- 
terest in the right of disposal. 

The notion that tithet are a " property of the church," is 
quite a fiction. In this sense, what is the church? If no 
individual man has his property taken away by a legislative 
abolition of tithes, it is unmeaning to talk of " the church" 
having lost it. 

It is, perhaps, a vain thing to talk of how the legislature 
might do a thing which perhaps it may not resolve, for ages, 
to do at all. But if it were to take away the right to tithes 
as the present incumbents died, or as the interests of the pres- 
ent owners ceased, there would be no reason to complain of 
injustice, whatever there might be of procrastinating the ful- 
filment of a Christian duty. 

Whether a good man, knowing the inconsistency of forced 
maintenance with the Christian law, ought to accept a prof- 
fered equivalent for that maintenance, is another considera- 



496 



VOLUNTARY PAYMENT 



tion. If it is wrong to retain it, it is not obvious how it can 
be right, or how at least it can avoid the appearance of evil, 
to accept money for giving it up. It is upon these principles 
that the religious community who decline to pay tithes, de- 
cline also to receive them. By legacy or otherwise, the legal 
right is sometimes possessed by these persons, but their moral 
discipline requires alike a refusal to receive or to pay. 

VOLUNTARY PAYMENT* 

That this system possesses many advantages over a legal 
provision we have already seen. But this does not imply 
that even voluntary payment is conformable with the dignity 
of the Christian ministry, with its usefulness, or with the re- 
quisitions of the Christian law. 

And here I am disposed, in the outset, to acknowledge that 
the question of payment is involved in an antecedent question 
■ — the necessary qualifications of a Christian minister. If one 
of these necessaiy qualifications be, that he should devote his 
youth and early manhood to theological studies, or to studies 
or exercises of any kind, I do not perceive how the propriety 
of voluntary payment can be disputed ; for, when a man who 
might otherwise have fitted himself, in a counting-house or 
an office, for procuring his after-support, employs his time 
necessarily in qualifying himself for a Christian instructor, it 
is indispensable that he should be paid for fcis instructions. 
Or if, after he has assumed the ministerial function, it be his 
indispensable business to devote all or the greater portion of 
his time to studies or other preparations for the pulpit, the 
same necessity remains. He must be paid for his ministry, 
because, in order to be a minister, h% is prevented from main- 
taining himself. 

But the necessary qualifications of a minister of the gospel 
cannot here be discussed. We pass on, therefore, with the 
simple expression of the sentiment, that how beneficial soever 
a theological education and theological enquiries may be in 
the exercise of the office, yet that they form no necessary 
qualifications ; — that men may be, and that some are, true and 
sound ministers of that gospel, without them. 

Now, in enquiring into the Christian character and tenden- 
cy of payment for preaching Christianity, one position will 
perhaps be recognized as universally true — that if the same 
ability and zeal in the exercise of the ministry could be at- 

* " Thou shalt take no gift : for the gift blindeth the wise, and pervert - 
eth the words of the righteous." — Exod. xxiii. 8. Mem. in the MS. 



CHAP. XVI.] 



AND UNPAID MINISTRY. 



497 



tained without payment as with it, the payment might reason- 
ably and rightly be forborne. Nor will it perhaps be disputed, 
that if Christian teachers of the present day were possessed 
of some good portion of the qualifications, and were actuated 
by the motives, of the first teachers of our religion, stated 
remuneration would not be needed. If love for mankind, 
and the " ability which God giveth," were strong enough to 
induce and to enable men to preach the gospel without pay- 
ment, the employment of money as a motive would be with- 
out use or propriety. Remuneration is a contrivance adapted 
to an imperfect state of the Christian church : — nothing but 
imperfection can make it needful ; and, when that imperfec- 
tion shall be removed, it will cease to be needful again. 

These considerations would lead us to expect, even ante- 
cedently to enquiry, that some ill effects are attendant upon 
the system of remuneration. Respecting these effects, one 
of the advocates of a legal provision holds language which, 
though it be much too strong, nevertheless contains much 
truth. " Upon the voluntary plan," says Dr. Paley, " preach- 
ing, in time, would become a mode of begging. With what 
sincerity or with what dignity can a preacher dispense the 
truths of Christiaihty, whose thoughts are perpetually soli- 
cited to the reflection how he may increase his subscription ? 
His eloquence, if he possess any, resembles rather the exhi- 
bition of a player who is computing the profits of his theatre, 
than the simplicity of a man who, feeling himself the awful 
expectations of religion, is seeking to bring others to such a 
sense and understanding of their duty as may save their 
souls. — He, not only whose success but whose subsistence 
depends upon collecting and pleasing a crowd, must resort to 
other arts than the acquirement and communication of sober 
and profitable instruction. For a preacher to be thus at the 
mercy of his audience, to be obliged to adapt his doctrines to 
the pleasure of a capricious multitude, to be continually af- 
fecting a style and manner neither natural to him nor agree- 
able to his judgment, to live in constant bondage to tyrannical 
and insolent directors, are circumstances so mortifying not 
only to the pride of the human heart but to the virtuous love 
of independency, that they are rarely submitted to without a 
sacrifice of principle and a depravation of character ; — at 
least it may be pronounced, that a ministry so degraded would 
soon fall into the lowest hands ; for it would be found impos- 
sible to engage men of worth and ability in so precarious and 
humiliating a profession."* 

* Mor. and Pol. Phi], b. 6, c. 10. 
42* 



498 



VOLUNTARY PAYMENT 



[essay III. 



To much of this it is a sufficient answer, that the predic- 
tions are contradicted by the fact. Of those teachers who 
are supported by voluntary subscriptions, it is not true that 
their eloquence resembles the exhibition of a player who is 
computing the profits of his theatre ; for the fact is, that a 
very large proportion of them assiduously devote themselves 
from better motives to the religious benefit of their flocks : — 
it is not true that the office is rarely undertaken without what 
can be called a depravation of character ; for the character, 
both religious and moral, of those teachers who are volunta-* 
rily paid, is at least as exemplary as that of those who are 
paid by provision of the state : — it is not true that the office 
falls into the lowest hands, and that it is impossible to engage 
men of worth and ability in the profession, because very many 
of such men are actually engaged in it. 

But although the statements of the Archdeacon are not 
wholly true, they are true in part. Preaching will become a 
mode of begging. When a congregation wants a preacher, 
and we see a man get into the pulpit expressly and confess- 
edly to show how he can preach, in order that the hearers 
may consider how they like him, and when one object of his 
thus doing is confessedly to obtain an income, there is reason 
— not certainly for speaking of him as a beggar — but for be- 
lieving that the dignity and freedom of the gospel are sacri- 
ficed. — Thoughts perpetually solicited to the reflection how he 
may increase his subscription. Supposing this to be the lan- 
guage of exaggeration, supposing the increase of his subscrip- 
tion to be his subordinate concern, yet still it is his concern, 
and being his concern, it is his temptation. It is to be feared, 
that by the influence of this temptation his sincerity and his 
independence may be impaired, that the consideration of what 
his hearers wish rather than of what he thinks they need, 
may prompt him to sacrifice his conscience to his profit, and 
to add or to deduct something from the counsel of God. Such 
temptation necessarily exists ; and it were only to exhibit 
ignorance of the motives of human conduct to deny that it 
will sometimes prevail. — To live in constant bondage to inso- 
lent and tyrannical directors. It is not necessary to suppose 
that directors will be tyrannical or insolent, nor by conse- 
quence to suppose that the preacher is in a state of constant 
bondage. But if they be not tyrants and he a slave, they 
may be masters and he a servant ; a servant in a sense far 
different from that in which the Christian minister is required 
to be a servant of the Church — in a sense which implies an 
undue subserviency of his ministrations to the will of men, 



CHAP. XVI.] 



AND UNPAID MINISTRY. 



499 



and which is incompatible with the obligation to have no mas- 
ter but Christ. 

Other modes of voluntary payment may be and perhaps 
they are adopted, but the effect will not be essentially differ- 
ent. Subscriptions may be collected from a number of con- 
gregations and thrown into a common fund, which fund may 
be appropriated by a directory or conference : but the objec- 
tions still apply ; for he who wishes to obtain an income as a 
preacher, has then to try to propitiate the directory instead of 
a congregation, and the temptation to sacrifice his independ- 
ence and his conscience remains. 

There is no way of obtaining emancipation from this sub- 
jection, no way of avoiding this temptation, but by a system 
in which the Christian ministry is absolutely free. 

But the ill effects of thus paying preachers are not confined 
to those who preach. The habitual consciousness that the 
preacher is paid, and the notion which some men take no 
pains to separate from this consciousness, that he preaches 
because he is paid, have a powerful tendency to diminish the 
influence of his exhortations, and the general effect of his 
labours. The vulgarly irreligious think, or pretend to think, 
that it is a sufficient excuse for disregarding these labours to 
say, They are a matter of course — preachers must say some- 
thing, because it is their trade. And it is more than to be 
feared that notions, the same in kind however different in 
extent, operate upon a large proportion of the community. It 
is not probable that it should be otherwise ; and thus it is that 
a continual deduction is made by the hearer from the preach- 
er's disinterestedness or sincerity, and a continual deduction 
therefore from the effect of his labours. 

How seldom can such a pastor say, with full demonstration 
of sincerity, " I seek not yours, but you." The flock may 
indeed be, and happily it often is, his first and greatest motive 
to exertion ; but the demonstrative evidence that it is so, can 
only be afforded by those whose ministrations are absolutely 
free. The deduction which is thus made from the practical 
influence of the labours of stipended preachers, is the same 
in kind (though differing in amount) as that which is made 
from a pleader's addresses in court. He pleads because he 
is paid for pleading. Who does not perceive, that if an able 
man came forward and pleaded in a cause without a retainer, 
and simply from the desire that justice should be awarded, 
he would be listened to with much more of confidence, and 
that his arguments would have much more weight, than if the 
same words were uttered by a barrister who was fee'd ? A 



500 



VOLUNTARY PAYMENT 



[ESSAY III. 



similar deduction is made from the writings of paid ministers, 
especially if they advocate their own particular faith. " He 
is interested evidence," says the reader — he has got a retain- 
er, and of course argues for his client ; and thus arguments 
that may be invincible, and facts that may be incontrovertibly 
true, lose some portion of their effect, even upon virtuous 
men, and a large portion upon the bad, because the preacher is 
paid. If, as is sometimes the case, " the amount of the salary 
given is regulated very precisely by the frequency of the 
ministry required," — so that a hearer may possibly allow the 
reflection, The preacher will get half a guinea for the sermon 
he is going to preach — it is almost impossible that the dignity 
of the Christian ministry should not be reduced, as well as 
that the influence of his exhortations should not be dimin- 
ished. " It is however more desirable," says Milton, " for 
example to be, and for the preventing of offence or suspicion, 
as well as more noble and honourable in itself, and conducive 
to our more complete glorying in God, to render an unpaid 
service to the church, in this as well as in all other instances ; 
and, after the example of our Lord, to minister and serve gra- 
tuitously."* 

Some ministers expend all the income which they derive 
from their office in acts of beneficence. To these we may 
safely appeal for confirmation of these remarks. Do you not 
find that the consciousness, in the minds of your hearers, that 
you gain nothing by your labour, greatly increases its influ- 
ence upon them ? Do you not find that they listen to you 
with more confidence and regard, and more willingly admit 
the truths which you inculcate and conform to the advices 
which you impart ? If these things be so — and who will dis- 
pute it 1 — how great must be the aggregate obstruction which 
pecuniary remuneration opposes to the influence of religion 
in the world. 



But indeed it is not practicable to the writer to illustrate 
the whole of what he conceives to be the truth upon this sub- 
ject, without a brief advertence to the qualifications of the 
minister of the gospel : because, if his view of these qualifi- 
cations be just, the stipulation for such and such exercise of 
the ministry, and such and such payment is impossible. If it 
is " admitted that the ministry of the gospel is the work of 
the Lord, that it can be rightly exercised only in virtue of his 
appointment," and only when " a necessity is laid upon the 
minister to preach the gospel," — it is manifest, that he cannot 
^Christian Doctrine : p. 484. 



CHAP. XVI.] 



AND UNPAID MINISTRY. 



501 



engage beforehand to preach, when others desire it. It is 
manifest, that " the compact which binds the minister to preach 
on the condition that his hearers shall pay him for his preach- 
ing, assumes the character of absolute inconsistency with the 
spirituality of the Christian religion."* 

Freely ye have received, freely give. When we contem- 
plate a Christian minister who illustrates, both in his commis- 
sion and in his practice, this language of his Lord ; who 
teaches, advises, reproves, with the authority and affection of 
a commissioned teacher ; who fears not to displease his hear- 
ers, and desires not to receive their reward ; who is under no 
temptation to withhold, and does not withhold, any portion of 
that counsel which he thinks God designs for his church ; — 
when we contemplate such a man, we may feel somewhat of 
thankfulness and of joy ; — of thankfulness and joy that the 
Universal Parent thus enables his creatures to labour for the 
good of one another, in that same spirit in which he cares for 
them and blesses them himself. 

I censure not, either in word or in thought, him who, in 
sincerity of mind, accepts remuneration for his labours in the 
church. It may not be inconsistent with the dispensations 
of Providence, that in the present imperfect condition of the 
Christian family, imperfect principles respecting the ministry 
should be permitted to prevail : nor is it to be questioned that 
some of those who do receive remuneration, are fulfilling their 
proper allotments in the universal church. But this does not 
evince that we should not anticipate the arrival, and promote 
the extension, of a more perfect state. It does not evince 
that a higher allotment may not await their successors — that 
days of greater purity and brightness may not arrive ; — of 
purity, when every motive of the Christian minister shall be 
simply Christian ; and of brightness, when the light of truth 

* 1 would venture to suggest to some of those to whom these consider- 
ations are offered, whether the notion that a preacher is a sine qua non 
of the exercise of public worship, is not taken up without sufficient con- 
sideration of the principles which it involves. If, " where two or three 
are gathered together in the name " of Christ, there He, the minister of 
the sanctuary, is " in the midst of them," it surely cannot be necessary 
to the exercises of such worship, that another preacher should be there. 
Surely, too, it derogates something from the excellence, something from 
the glory of the Christian dispensation, to assume that, if a number of 
Christians should be so situated as to be without a preacher, there the 
public worship of God cannot be performed. This may often happen in 
remote places, in voyages or the like : and I have sometimes been im- 
pressed with the importance of these considerations when I have heard 

a person say, " is absent, and therefore there will be no divine 

service this morning." 



502 



PATRIOTISM. 



[ESSAY III. 



shall be displayed with greater effulgence. When the Great 
Parent of all shall thus turn his favour towards his people ; 
when He shall supply them with teachers exclusively of his 
own appointment, it will be perceived that the ordinary present 
state of the Christian ministry is adapted only to the twilight 
of the Christian day ; and some of those who now faithfully 
labour in this hour of twilight will be amongst the first to re- 
joice in the greater glory of the noon. 



CHAPTER XVII. . * 

PATRIOTISM. 

Patriotism as it is viewed by Christianity — A Patriotism which is opposed 
to general benignity — Patriotism not the soldier's motive. 

We are presented with a beautiful subject of contemplation, 
when we discover that the principles which Christianity ad- 
vances upon its own authority, are recommended and enforced 
by their practical adaptation to the condition and the wants of 
man. With such a subject I think we are presented in the 
case of Patriotism. 

" Christianity does not encourage particular patriotism in 
opposition to general benignity."* If it did, it would not be 
adapted for the world. The duties of the subject of one state 
would often be in opposition to those of the subject of another, 
and men might inflict evil or misery upon neighbour nations 
in conforming to the Christian law. Christianity is designed 
to benefit, not a community, but the world. The promotion 
of the interests of one community by injuring another — that 
is, " patriotism in opposition to general benignity," — it utterly 
rejects as wrong ; and in doing this, it dogs that which in a 
system of such wisdom and benevolence we should expect. 
— " The love of our country," says Adam Smith, " seems not 
to be derived from the love of mankind."! 

I do not mean to say that the word patriotism is to be found 
in the New Testament, or that it contains any disquisitions 
respecting the proper extent of the love of our country — but I 
say that the universality of benevolence which Christianity 

* Bishop Watson. 

t Theo. Mor. Sent. The limitation with which this opinion should 
be regarded, we shall presently propose. 



CHAP. XVII.] 



PATRIOTISM. 



503 



inculcates, both in its essential character and in its precepts, 
is incompatible with that patriotism which would benefit our 
own community at the expense of general benevolence. Pa- 
triotism, as it is often advocated, is a low and selfish principle, 
a principle wholly unworthy of that enlightened and expanded 
philanthropy which religion proposes. 

Nevertheless Christianity appears not to encourage the doc- 
trine of being a " citizen of the world," and of paying no more 
regard to our own community than to every other. And why ? 
Because such a doctrine is not rational ; because it opposes 
the exercise of natural and virtuous feelings ; and because, if 
it were attempted to be reduced to practice, it may be feared 
that it would destroy confined benignity without effecting a 
counterbalancing amount of universal philanthropy. This 
preference of our own nation is indicated in that strong lan- 
guage of Paul, " I could wish that myself were accursed from 
Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, 
who are Israelites."* And a similar sentiment is inculcated 
by the admonition — " As we have, therefore, opportunity, let 
us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the 
household of faith."t In another place the same sentiment 
is applied to more private life ; — " If any provide not for his 
own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied 
the faith.";); 

All this is perfectly consonant with reason and with nature. 
Since the helpless and those who need assistance must obtain 
it somewhere, where can they so rationally look for it, where 
shall they look for it at all, except from those with whom 
they are connected in society 1 If these do not exercise be- 
nignity towards them, who will ? And as to the dictate of 
nature, it is a law of nature that a man shall provide for his 
own. He is prompted to do this by the impulse of nature. 
Who, indeed, shall support, and cherish, and protect a child 
if his parents do not 1 That speculative philosophy is vain 
which would supplant these dictates by doctrines of general 
philanthropy. It cannot be applicable to human affairs until 
there is an alteration in the human constitution. Not only 
religion therefore, but reason and nature, reject that philoso- 
phy which teaches that no man should prefer or aid another 
because he is his countryman, his neighbour, or his child : — 
for even this, the philosophy has taught us ; and we have 
been seriously told that, in pursuance of general philanthropy, 
we ought not to cherish or support our own offspring in pre- 
ference to other children. The effect of these doctrines, if 
* Rom. ix. 3. t Gal. vi. 10. X 1 Tim. v. 8. 



504 



PATRIOTISM. 



[ESSAY III. 



they were reduced to practice, would be, not to diffuse univer- 
sal benevolence, but to contract or destroy the charities of 
men for their families, their neighbours, and their country. 
It is an idle system of philosophy which sets out with extin- 
guishing those principles of human nature wmich the Creator 
has implanted for wise and good ends. He that shall so far 
succeed in practising this philosophy as to look with indiffer- 
ence upon his parent, his wife, and his son, will not often be 
found with much zeal to exercise kindness and benevolence 
to the world at large. 

Christianity rejects alike the extravagance of Patriotism and 
the extravagance of seeming philanthropy. Its precepts are 
addressed to us as men with human constitutions, and as men 
in sociefy. But to cherish and support my own child rather 
than others ; to do good to my neighbours rather than to stran- 
gers ; to benefit my own country rather than another nation, 
does not imply that we may injure other nations, or strangers, 
or their children, in order to do good to our own. Here is 
the point for discrimination — a point which vulgar patriotism 
and vulgar philosophy have alike overlooked. 

The proper mode in which Patriotism should be exercised, 
is that which does not necessarily respect other nations. He 
is the truest patriot who benefits his own country without 
diminishing the welfare of another. For which reason, those 
who induce improvements in the administration of justice, in 
the maxims of governing, in the political constitution of the 
state — or those who extend and rectify the education, or in 
any other manner amend the moral or social condition of a 
people, possess incomparably higher claims to the praise of 
patriotism than multitudes of those who receive it from the 
popular voice. 

That patriotism which is manifested in political partizan- 
ship, is frequently of a very questionable kind. The motives 
to this partizanship are often far other than the love of our 
country, even when the measure which a party pursues tends 
to the country's good ; and many are called patriots, of whom 
both the motives and the actions are pernicious or impure. 
The most vulgar and unfounded talk of patriotism is that which 
relates to the agents of military operations. In general, the 
patriotism is of a kind which Christianity condemns ; because 
it is " in opposition to general benignity." It does more harm 
to another country than good to our own. In truth, the merit 
often consists in the harm that is done to another country, with 
but little pretensions to benefiting our own. These agents 
therefore, if they were patriotic at all, would commonly be so" 



CHAP. XVII.] 



PATRIOTISM. 



505 



in an unchristian sense. And as to their being influenced by 
patriotism as a motive, the notion is ordinarily quite a fiction. 
When a Frenchman is sent with ten thousand others into 
Spain, or a Spaniard with an army into France, he probably 
is so far from acting the patriot that he does not know whether 
his country would not be more benefited by throwing down 
his arms ; nor probably does he know about what the two na- 
tions are quarrelling. Men do not enter armies because they 
love their countries, but because they want a living, or are 
pleased with a military life : and when they have entered, 
they do not fight because they love their country, but because 
fighting is their business. At the^very moment of fighting, 
the nation at home is perhaps divided in opinion as to the 
propriety of carrying on the war. One party maintains that 
the war is beneficial, and one that it is ruining the nation. But 
the soldier, for whatever he fights, and whether really in pro- 
motion of his country's good, or in opposition to it, is secure 
of his praise. 

All this is sufficiently deceptive and absurd : the delusion 
would be ridiculous if the topic were not too grave for ridicule. 
It forms one amongst the many fictions by which the reputa- 
tion of military affairs is kept up. Why such fictions are 
needful to the purpose, it may be wise for the reader to en- 
quire. I suppose the cause is, that truth and reality would 
not serve the purposes of military reputation, and therefore 
that recourse is had to pleasant fictions. This may, however, 
have been done without a distinct consciousness, on the part 
of the inventors, of the delusions which they spread. I do 
not wholly coincide with the writer who says, — " The love 
of our country is one of those specious illusions which have 
been invented by impostors in order to render the multitude 
the blind instruments of their crooked designs."* The love 
of our country is a virtuous motive of action. The " specious 
illusion" consists in calling that "love of country" which 
ought to be called by a far other name. As to those who 
have thus misnamed human motives and actions, I know not 
whether they have often been such wily impostors. The 
probable supposition is, that they have frequently been duped 
themselves. He whom ambition urged on to conquest, tried 
to persuade himself, and perhaps did persuade himself, that 
he was actuated by the love of his comitry. He persuaded, 
also, his followers in arms ; and they, no doubt, were suffi- 
ciently willing to hope that they were influenced by such a 
motive. But, in whatever manner the fiction originated, a 
* Godwin : Pol. Justice, v. 2, p. 514. 
43 



506 



SLAVERY. 



[ESSAY III. 



fiction it assuredly is ; and the circumstance that it is still 
industriously imposed upon the world, is no inconsiderable 
evidence that the system which it is employed to encourage, 
would shrink from the eye of virtue and the light of truth. 

Upon the whole, we shall act both safely and wisely in 
lowering the relative situation of patriotism in the scale of 
Christian virtues. It is a virtue ; but it is far from the great- 
est or the highest. The world has given to it an unwarranted 
elevation — an elevation to which it has no pretensions in the 
view of truth ; and if the friends of truth consign it to its pro- 
per station, it is probable that there will be fewer spurious pre- 
tensions to its praise. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

SLAVERY 

Requisitions of Christianity professedly disregarded — Persian law — The 
slave system a costly iniquity. 

At a future day it will probably become a subject of won- 
der how it could have happened that upon such a subject as 
Slavery men could have enquired, and examined, and debated, 
year after year ; and that many years actually passed before 
the minds of a nation were so fully convinced of its enormity, 
and of their consequent duty to abolish it, as to suppress it to 
the utmost of their power. I say this will probably be a sub- 
ject of wonder ; because the question is so simple, that he 
who simply applies the requisitions of the Moral Law finds 
no time for reasoning or for doubt. The question, as soon as 
it is proposed, is decided. How, then, it will be asked, in 
future days, could a Christian Legislature argue and contend, 
and contend and argue again, and allow an age to pass with- 
out deciding. 

The cause is, that men do not agree as to the rule of deci- 
sion — as to the test by which the question should be examined. 
One talks of the rights to property — one of the interests' of 
merchants — one of safety — one of policy — all of which are 
valid and proper considerations ; but they are not the primary / 
consideration. The first question is, Is Slavery right ? Is it 
consistent with the Moral Law I This question is, in prac- 
tice, postponed to others, even by some who theoretically ac- 



CHAP. XVIII.] 



SLAVERY. 



507 



knowledge its primary claim ; and when to the indistinct prin- 
ciples of these is added the want of principle in others, it is 
easy to account for the delay and opposition with which the 
advocate of simple rectitude is met. 

To him who examines slavery by the standard to which all 
questions of human duty should be referred, the task of de- 
ciding, we say, is short. Whether it is consistent with the 
Christian Law for one man to keep another in bondage with- 
out his consent, and to compel him to labour for that other's 
advantage, admits of no more doubt than whether two and two 
make four. . It were humiliating, then, to set about the proof 
that the Slave System is incompatible with Christianity ; be- 
cause no man questions its incompatibility who knows what 
Christianity is, and what it requires. Unhappily, some who 
can estimate, with tolerable precision, the duties of morality 
upon other subjects, contemplate this through a veil — a veil 
which habit has suspended before them, and which is dense 
enough to intercept the*view of the moral features of slavery 
as they are presented to others who examine it without an in- 
tervening medium, and with no other light than the light of 
truth. To these the best counsel that we can offer is, to sim- 
plify their reasonings — to recur to first principles ; and first 
principles are few. Look, then, at the foundation of all the 
relative duties of man — Benevolence — Love — that love and 
benevolence which is the fulfilling of the Moral Law — that 
" charity" which prompts to actions of kindness, and tender- 
ness, and fellow-feeling for all men. Does he who seizes a 
person in Guinea, and drags him shrieking to a vessel, prac- 
tise this benevolence 1 When three or four hundreds have 
been thus seized, does he who chains them together in a suf- 
focating hold practise this benevolence 1 When they have 
reached another shore, does he who gives money to the first 
for his victims — keeps them as his property — and compels 
them to labour for his profit, practise*this benevolence ? Would 
either of these persons think, if their relative situations were 
exchanged with the Africans', that the Africans used them 
kindly and justly? No. Then the question is decided. Chris- 
tianity condemns the system ; and no further enquiry about 
rectitude remains. 1 The question is as distinctly settled as 
when a man commits a burglary it is distinctly certain that 
he has violated the law. 

But of the flagitiousness of the system in the view of Chris- 
tianity, its defenders are themselves aware — for they tell us, 
if not with decency at least with openness, that Christianity 
must be excluded from the enquiry. What does this exclu- 



508 



SLAVERY. 



[ESSAY III. 



sion imply? Obviously, that the advocates of slavery are 
conscious that Christianity condemns it. They take her away 
from the judgment seat, because they know she will pro- 
nounce a verdict against them. — Does the reader desire more 
than this ? Here is the evidence, both of enemies and of 
friends, that the Moral Law of God condemns the slave sys- 
tem. If, therefore, we are Christians, the question is not 
merely decided, but confessedly decided : and what more do 
we ask? 

It is, to be sure, a curious thing, that they who affirm they 
are Christians, will not have their conduct examined by the 
Christian Law ; and whilst they baptize their children and 
kneel at the communion table, tell us that with one of the 
greatest questions of practical morality our religion has no 
concern. 

Two reasons induce the writer to confine himself, upon 
this subject, to little more than the exhibition of fundamental 
principles ; — first that the details of tne Slavery question are 
already laid, in unnumbered publications, before the public ; 
and, secondly, that he does not think it will long remain, at 
least in this country, a subject for discussion. That the sys- 
tem will, so far as the British government is concerned, at no 
distant period be abolished, appears nearly certain ; and he is 
unwilling to fill the pages of a book of general morality with 
discussions which, ere many years have passed, may possess 
no relevance to the affairs of the Christian world. 

Yet one remark is offered as to a subordinate means of es- 
timating the goodness or badness of a cause — that which con- 
sists in referring to the principles upon which each party 
reasons, to the general spirit, to the tone and the temper 
of the disputants. Now, I am free to confess, that if I had 
never heard an argument against Slavery, I should find, in the 
writings of its defenders, satisfactory evidence that their 
cause is bad. So true is this, that if at any time I needed 
peculiarly to impress myself with the flagitiousness of the 
system, I should take up the book of a determined advocate. 
There I find the most unequivocal of all testimony against it 
— that which is unwittingly furnished by its advocates. There 
I find, first, that the fundamental principles of morality are 
given to the winds ; — that the proper foundation of the reason- 
ing is rejected and ridiculed. There I find that the temper 
and dispositions which are wont to influence the advocate of 
a good cause, are scarcely to be found ; and that those which 
usually characterize a bad one, continually appear ; and there- 
fore, even setting aside inaccurate statements and fallacious 



CHAP. XVIII.] 



SLAVERY. 



509 



reasonings, I am assured, from the general character of the 
defence and conduct, of the defenders, that the system is radi- 
cally vicious and bad. 

The distinctions which are made between the original rob- 
bery in Africa, and the purchase, the inheritance, or the 
" breeding" of slaves in the colonies, do not at all respect the 
kind of immorality that attaches to the whole system. They 
respect nothing but the degree. The man who wounds and 
robs another on the highway, is a more atrocious offender 
than he who plunders a hen-roost ; — but he is not more truly 
an offender, he is not more certainly a violater of the law. — 
And so with the slave system. He who drags a wretched 
man from his family in Africa, is a more flagitious transgres- 
sor than he who merely compels the African to labour for his 
own advantage ; but the transgression, the immorality, is 
as real and certain in one case as in the other. He who had 
no right to steal the African can have none to sell him. From 
him who is known to have no right to sell, another can have 
no right to buy or to possess. Sale, or gift, or legacy, imparts 
no right to me, because the seller, or giver, or bequeath- 
er, had none himself. The sufferer has just as valid a claim 
to liberty at my hands as at the hands of the ruffian who first 
dragged him from his home. — Every hour of every day, the 
present possessor is guilty of injustice. Nor is the case al- 
tered with respect to those who are born on a man's estate. 
The parents were never the landholder's property, and there- 
fore the child is not. Nay, if the parents had been rightfully, 
slaves, it would not justify nje in making slaves of their chil- 
dren. No man has a right to make a child a slave, but him- 
self. What are our sentiments upon kindred subjects? What 
do we think of the justice of the Persian system, by which, 
when a state offender is put to death, his brothers and 
his children are killed and mutilated too ? Or, to come nearer 
to the point, as well as nearer home, what should we say 
of a law which enacted, that of every criminal who was sen- 
tenced to labour for life, all the children should be sentenced 
so to labour also ? — And yet, if there is any comparison of rea- 
sonableness, it seems to be in one respect in favour of 
the culprit. He is condemned to slavery for his crimes : the 
African, for another man's profit. 

That any human being who has not forfeited his liberty by 
his crimes, has a right to be free — and that whosoever forci- 
bly withholds liberty from an innocent man, robs him of his 
right and violates the Moral Law, are truths which no 
man would dispute or doubt, if custom had not obscured our 

43* 



510 



SLAVERY. 



[essay in. 



perceptions, or if wickedness did not prompt us to close our 

eyes. 

The whole system is essentially and radically bad : — 
Injustice and oppression are its fundamental principles. What- 
ever lenity may be requisite in speaking of the agent, none 
should be shown, none should be expressed for the act. I do 
not affirm or imagine that every slaveholder is therefore a 
wicked man ; — but if he be not, it is only upon the score 
of ignorance. If he is exempt from the guilt of violating the 
Moral Law, it is only because he does not perceive what 
it requires. Let us leave the deserts of the individual to Him 
who knoweth the heart ; of his actions, we may speak; and we 
should speak in the language of reprobation, disgust, and ab- 
horrence. 

Although it could be shown that the slave system is expe- 
dient, it would not affect the question, whether it ought to be 
maintained ? — yet it is remarkable that it is shown to be im- 
politic as well as bad. We are not violating the Moral Law 
because it fills our pockets. We injure ourselves by our own 
transgressions. The slave system is a costly iniquity both to 
the nation and to individual men. It is matter of great satis- 
faction that -this is known and proved; and yet it is just what, 
antecedently to enquiry, we should have reason to expect. — 
The truth furnishes one addition to the many evidences, that, 
even with respect to temporal affairs, that which is right 
is commonly politic ; and it ought, therefore, to furnish addi- 
tional inducements to a fearless conformity of conduct, private 
and public, to the Moral Law. ^ 

is quite evident that our slave system will be abolished, 
and that its supporters will hereafter be regarded with the 
same public feelings, as he who was an advocate of the slave 
trade, is now. How is it that legislators or that public 
men are so indifferent to their fame ? Who would now be 
willing that biography should record of him — This man defend- 
ed the slave trade ? The time will come when the record — 
This man opposed the abolition of slavery — will occasion a 
great deduction from the public estimate of worth of charac- 
ter. When both these atrocities are abolished, and but for 
the page of history forgotten, that page will make a wide dif- 
ference between those who aided the abolition, and those 
who obstructed it. The one will be ranked amongst the 
Howards that are departed, and the other amongst those who, 
in ignorance or in guilt, have employed their little day in in- 
flicting misery upon mankind. 



CHAP. XIX.] 



WAR. 



511 



CHAPTER XIX. 

WAR. 

Causes of War. — Want of enquiry : Indifference to human misery : 
National irritability : Interest : Secret motives of Cabinets : Ideas of 
glory— Foundation of military glory. 

Consequences of War. — Destruction of human life : Taxation : Moral 
depravity : Familiarity with plunder : Implicit submission to superiors : 
Resignation of moral agency : Bondage and degradation — Loan of 
armies — Effects on the community. 

Lawfulness of War. — Influence of habit — Of appealing to antiquity — 
The Christian Scriptures — Subjects of Christ's benediction — Matt, 
xxvii. 52. — The Apostles and Evangelists — The Centurion — Cornelius 
— Silence not a proof of approbation — Luke xxii. 36. — John the Baptist 
—Negative evidence — Prophecies of the Old Testament — The requi- 
sitions of Christianity of present obligation — Primitive Christians — Ex- 
ample and testimony of early Christians — Christian soldiers — Wars of 
the Jews — Duties of individuals and nations — Offensive and defensive 
war — Wars always aggressive — Paley — War wholly forbidden. 

Of the probable and practical Effects of adhering to the 
Moral Law in respect to War. — Quakers in America and Ireland 
— Colonization of Pennsylvania — Unconditional reliance on Providence 
— Recapitulation — General Observations. 

It is one amongst the numerous moral phenomena of the 
present times, that the enquiry is silently yet not slowly spread- 
ing in the world — Is War compatible with the Christian reli- 
gion ? There was a period when the question was seldom 
asked, and when war was regarded almost by every man both 
as inevitable and right. That period has certainly pasyd 
away ; and not only individuals but public societies, and socie- 
ties in distant nations, are urging the question upon the atten- 
tion of mankind. The simple circumstance that it is thus 
urged contains no irrational motive to investigation : for why 
should men ask the question if they did not doubt ; and how, 
after these long ages of prescription, could they begin to doubt, 
without a reason ? 

It is not unworthy of remark, that whilst disquisitions are 
frequently issuing from the press, of wmich the tendency is to 
show that war is not compatible with Christianity, few seri- 
ous attempts are made to show that it is. Whether this 
results from the circumstance that no individual peculiarly is 
interested in the proof — or that there is a secret conscious- 
ness that proof cannot be brought — or that those who may be 
desirous of defending the custom, rest in security that the im- 
potence of its assailants will be of no avail against a custom 



512 



WAR. 



so established and so supported — -I do not know ; yet the fact 
is remarkable, that scarcely a defender is to be found. It 
cannot be doubted that the question is one of the utmost inter- 
est and importance to man. Whether the custom be defensi- 
ble or not, every man should enquire into its consistency with 
tlTe Moral Law. If it is defensible he may, by enquiry, dis- 
miss the scruples which it is certain subsist in the minds of 
multitudes, and thus exempt himself from the offence of par- 
ticipating in that which, though pure, he " esteemeth to be 
unclean." If it'is not defensible, the propriety of investigation 
is increased in a tenfold degree, 

It may be a subject therefore of reasonable regret to the 
friends and the lovers of truth, that the question of the Moral 
Lawfulness of War is not brought fairly before the pubhc. I 
say fairly : because though many of the publications which 
impugn its lawfulness advert to the ordinary arguments in its 
favour, yet it is not to be assumed that they give to those argu- 
ments all that vigour and force which would be imparted by a 
stated and an able advocate. Few books, it is probable, 
would tend more powerfully to promote the discovery and dis- 
semination of truth, than one which should frankly and fully 
and ably advocate, upon sound moral principles, the practice 
of war. The public would then see the whole of what can 
be urged in its favour without being obliged to seek for argu- 
ments, as they now must, in incidental or imperfect or scat- 
tered disquisitions : and possessing in a distinct form the 
evidence of both parties, they would be enabled to judge justly 
between them. Perhaps if, invited as the public are to the 
di|f ussion, no man is hereafter willing to adventure in the 
cause, the conclusion will not be unreasonable, that no man is 
destitute of a consciousness that the cause is not a good one. 

Meantime it is the business of him whose enquiries have 
conducted him to the conclusion that the cause is not good, to 
exhibit the evidence upon which the conclusion is founded. 
It happens upon the subject of war, more than upon almost 
any other subject of human enquiry, that the individual finds 
it difficult to contemplate its merits with an uninfluenced 
mind. He finds it difficult to examine it as it would be ex- 
amined by a philosopher to whom the subject was new. He 
is familiar with its details ; he is habituated to the idea of its 
miseries ; he has perhaps never doubted, because he has 
never questioned, its rectitude ; nay, he has associated with 
it ideas not of splendour only but of honour and of merit. 
That such an enquirer will not, without some effort of abstrac- 
tion, examine the question with impartiality and justice, is 



CHAP. XIX.] 



CAUSES OF WAR. 



513 



plain ; and therefore the first business of him who would 
satisfy his mind respecting the lawfulness of war, is to divest 
himself of all those habits of thought and feeling which have 
been the result not of reflection and judgment, but of the ordi- 
nary associations of life. And perhaps he may derive some 
assistance in this necessary but not easy dismissal of previous 
opinions, by referring first to some of the ordinary Causes and 
Consequences of War. The reference will enable us also 
more satisfactorily to estimate the moral character of the prac- 
tice itself: for it is no unimportant auxiliary in forming such 
an estimate of human actions or opinions, to know how they 
have been produced and what are their effects. 

CAUSES OF WAR. 

Of these Causes one undoubtedly consists in the want of 
enquiry. We have been accustomed from earliest life to a 
familiarity with its " pomp and circumstance ;" soldiers have 
passed us at every step, and battles and victories have been 
the topic of every one around us. It therefore becomes famil- 
iarized to all our thoughts and interwoven with all our associ- 
ations. We have never enquired whether these things should 
be : the question does not even suggest itself. We acquiesce 
in it, as we acquiesce in the rising of the sun, without any 
other idea than that it is a part of the ordinary processes of 
the world. And how are we to feel disapprobation of a sys- 
tem that we do not examine, and of the nature of which we 
do not think ? Want of enquiry has been the means by which 
long-continued practices, whatever has been their enormity, 
have obtained the general concurrence of the world, and by 
which they have continued to pollute or degrade it, long after 
the few who enquire into their nature have discovered them 
to be bad. It was by these means that the Slave Trade was 
so long tolerated by this land of humanity. Men did not think 
of its iniquity. We were induced to think, and we soon ab- 
horred, and then abolished it. Of the effects of this want of 
enquiry we have indeed frequent examples upon the subject 
before us. Many who have all their lives concluded that war 
is lawful and right, have found, when they began to examine 
the question, that their conclusions were founded upon no evi- 
dence ; — that they had believed in its rectitude not because 
they had possessed themselves of proof, but because they had 
never enquired whether it was capable of proof or not. In 
the present moral state of the world, one of the first concerns 



514 



CAUSES OF WAR. 



[ESSAY III. 



of him who would discover pure morality should be, to ques- 
tion the purity of that which now obtains. 

Another cause of our complacency with war, and therefore 
another cause of war itself, consists in that callousness to 
human misery which the custom induces. They who are 
shocked at a single murder on the highway, hear with indif- 
ference of the slaughter of a thousand on the field. They 
whom the idea of a single corpse would thrill with terror, con- 
template that of heaps of human carcasses mangled by human 
hands, with frigid indifference. If a murder is committed, 
the narrative is given in the public newspaper, with many ad- 
jectives of horror — with many expressions of commiseration, 
and many hopes that the perpetrator will be detected. In the 
next paragraph, the editor, perhaps, tells us that he has hur- 
ried a second edition to the press, in order that he may be the 
first to glad the public with the intelligence, that in an en- 
gagement which has just taken place, eight hundred and fifty 
of the enemy were killed. Now, is not this latter intelligence 
eight hundred and fifty times as deplorable as the first 1 Yet 
the first is the subject of our sorrow, and this — of our joy ! 
The inconsistency and disproportionateness which has been 
occasioned in our .sentiments of benevolence, offers a curious 
moral phenomenon.* 

The immolations of the Hindoos fill us with compassion or 

* Part of the Declaration and Oath prescribed to be taken by Cath- 
olics is this : " I do solemnly declare before God, that I believe that no act 
in itself unjust, immoral, or wicked, can ever be justified or excused by 
or under pretence or colour that it was done either for the good of the 
church or in obedience to any ecclesiastical power whatsoever." This 
declaration is required as a solemn act, and is supposed, of course, to in- 
volve a great and sacred principle of rectitude. We propose the same declar- 
ation to be taken by military men, with the alteration of two words. " I 
do solemnly declare before God, that I believe that no act in itself unjust, 
immoral, or wicked, can ever be justified or excused by or under pre- 
tence or colour that it was done either for the good of the state or in 
obedience to any military power whatsoever." How would this declara- 
tion assort with the customary practice of the soldier? Put state for 
church, and military for ecclesiastical, and then the world thinks that 
acts in themselves most unjust, immoral, and wicked, are not only justi- 
fied and excused, but very meritorious : for in the whole system of war- 
fare, justice and morality are utterly disregarded. Are those who approve 
of this Catholic declaration conscious of the grossness of their own 
inconsistency ? Or will they tell us that the interests of 'the state are so 
paramount to those of the church, that what would be wickedness in the 
service of one, is virtue in the service of the other ? The truth we sup- 
pose to be, that so intense is the power of public opinion, that of the 
thousands who approve the Catholic declarations and the practices of 
war, there are scarcely tens who even perceive their own inconsistency.— 
Mem. in the MS. 



CHAP. XIX.] 



CAUSES OF WAR. 



515 



horror, and we are zealously labouring to prevent them. The 
sacrifices of life by our own criminal executions, are the sub- 
ject of our anxious commiseration, and we are strenuously 
endeavouring to diminish their number. We feel that the life 
of a Hindoo or a malefactor is a serious thing, and that no- 
thing but imperious necessity should induce us to destroy the 
one, or to permit the destruction of the other. Yet what 
are these sacrifices of life in comparison with the sacrifices 
of war ! In the late campaign in Russia, there fell, during 
one hundred and seventy-three days in succession, an average 
of two thousand nine hundred men per day : more than five 
hundred thousand human beings in less than six months ! And 
most of these victims expired with peculiar intensity of suffer- 
ing. We are carrying our benevolence to the Indies, but 
what becomes of it in Russia, or at Leipsic ? We are labour- 
ing to save a few lives from the gallows, but where is our so- 
licitude to save them on the field ? Life is life wheresoever 
. it be sacrificed, and has every where equal claims to our re- 
sard. I am not now saying that war is wrong, but that we 
regard its miseries with an indifference with which we regard 
no others : that if our sympathy were reasonably excited re- 
specting them, we should be powerfully prompted to avoid 
war ; and that the want of this reasonable and virtuous sym- 
pathy, is one cause of its prevalence in the world. 

And another consists in national irritability. It is assumed 
(not indeed upon the most rational grounds) that the best way 
of supporting the dignity, and maintaining the security of a 
nation is, when occasions of disagreement arise, to assume a 
high attitude and a fearless tone. We keep ourselves in a 
state of irritability which is continually alive to occasions of 
offence ; and he that is prepared to be offended readily finds 
offences. A jealous sensibility sees insults and injuries where 
sober eyes see nothing ; and nations thus surround themselves 
with a sort of artificial tentacula, which they throw wide in 
quest of irritation, and by which they are stimulated to re- 
venge by every touch of accident or inadvertency. They 
who are easily offended will also easily offend. What is the 
experience of private life ? The man who is always on the 
alert to discover trespasses on his honour or his rights, never 
fails to quarrel with his neighbours. Such a person may be 
dreaded as a torpedo. We may fear, but we shall not love 
him ; and fear, without love, easily lapses into enmity. There 
are, therefore, many feuds and litigations in the life of such a 
man, that would never have disturbed its quiet if he had not 
captiously snarled at the trespasses of accident, and savagely 



I 



516 CAUSES OF WAR. [ESSAY III. 

retaliated insignificant injuries. The viper that we chance to 
molest, we suffer to live if he continue to be quiet ; but if he 
raise himself in menaces of destruction we knock him on the 
head. 

It is with nations as with men. If on every offence we fly 
to arms, we shall of necessity provoke exasperation ; and if 
we exasperate a people as petulent as ourselves we may pro- 
bably continue to butcher one another, until we cease only 
from emptiness of exchequers or weariness of slaughter. To 
threaten war, is therefore often equivalent to beginning it. In 
the present state of men's principles, it is not probable that 
one nation will observe another levying men, and building 
ships, and founding cannon, without providing men, and ships, 
and cannon themselves ; and when both are thus threatening 
and defying, what is the hope that there will not be a war ? 

If nations fought only when they could not be at peace, 
there would be very little fighting in the world. The wars 
that are waged for "insults to flags," and an endless train 
of similar motives, are perhaps generally attributable to the 
irritability of our pride. We are- at no pains to appear 
pacific towards the offender : our remonstrance is a threat ; 
and the nation, which would give satisfaction to an enquiry, 
will give no other answer to a menace than a menace in re- 
turn. At length we begin to fight, not because we are 
aggrieved, but because we are angry. One example may be 
offered: "In 1789, a small Spanish vessel committed some 
violence in Nootka Sound, under the pretence that the country 
belonged to Spain. This appears to have been the principal 
ground of offence ; and with this both the government and the 
people of England were very angry. The irritability and 
haughtiness which they manifested were unaccountable to the 
Spaniards, and the peremptory tone was imputed by Spain, 
not to the feelings of offended dignity and violated justice, but 
to some lurking enmity, and some secret designs which we 
did not choose to avow."* If the tone had been less peremp- 
tory and more rational, no such suspicion would have been 
excited, and the hostility which was consequent upon the sus- 
picion would, of course, have been avoided. Happily the 
English were not so passionate, but that before they proceeded 
to fight they negotiated, and settled the affair amicably. The 
preparations for this foolish war cost, however, three millions 
one hundred and thirty-three thousand pounds ! 

So well indeed is national irritability known to be an effi- 
cient cause of war, that they who from any motive wish to 
* Smollett's England. 



CHAP. XIX.] 



CAUSES OF WAR. 



517 



promote it, endeavour to rouse the temper of a people by 
stimulating their passions — just as the boys in our streets 
stimulate two dogs to fight. These persons talk of the insults, 
or the encroachments, or the contempts of the destined enemy, 
with every artifice of aggravation ; they tell us of foreigners 
who want to trample upon our rights, of rivals who ridicule 
our power, of foes who will crush, and of tyrants who will en- 
slave us. They pursue their object, certainly, by efficacious 
means : they desire a war, and therefore irritate our passions ; 
and when men are angry they are easily persuaded to fight. 

That this cause of War is morally bad — that petulance and 
irritability are wholly incompatible with Christianity, these 
pages have repeatedly shown. 

Wars are often promoted from considerations of interest, as 
well as from passion. The love of gain adds its influence to 
our other motives to support them ; and without other motives, 
we know that this love is sufficient to give great obliquity to 
the moral judgment, and to tempt us to many crimes. During 
a war of ten years there will always be many whose income 
depends on its continuance ; and a countless host of commis- 
saries, and purveyors, and agents, and mechanics, commend a 
war because it fills their pockets. And unhappily, if money 
is in prospect, the desolation of a kingdom is often of little 
concern : destruction and slaughter are not to be put in com- 
petition with a hundred a-year. In truth, it seems some- 
times to be the system of the conductors of a war, to give 
to the sources of gain endless ramifications. The more there 
are who profit by it the more numerous are its supporters ; 
and thus the projects of a cabinet become identified with the 
wishes of a people, and both are gratified in the prosecution 
of war. 

A support more systematic and powerful is however given 
to war, because it offers to the higher ranks of society a pro- 
fession which unites gentility with profit, and which, without 
the vulgarity of trade maintains or enriches them. It is of 
little consequence to enquire whether the distinction of vulgar- 
ity between the toils of war and the toils of commerce be fic- 
titious. In the abstract, it is fictitious ; but of this species of 
reputation public opinion holds the arbitrium et jus et norma ; 
and public opinion is in favour of war. 

The army and the navy, therefore, afford to the middle and 
higher classes a most acceptable profession. The profession 
of arms is like the profession of law or physic — a regular 
source of employment and profit. Boys are educated for the 
army as they are educated for the bar ; and parents appear to 

44 



518 



CAUSES OF WAR. 



[ESSAY III. 



have no other idea than that war is part of the business of the 
world. Of younger sons, whose fathers in pursuance of the 
unhappy system of primogeniture, do not choose to support 
them at the expense of the heir, the army and the navy are 
the common resource. They would not know what to do 
without them. To many of these the news of a peace is a 
calamity ; and though they may not lift their voices in fa- 
vour of new hostilities for the sake of gain, it is unhappily cer- 
tain that they often secretly desire it. 

It is in this manner that much of the rank, the influence, 
and the wealth of a country become interested in the promo- 
tion of wars ; and when a custom is promoted by wealth, and 
influence, and rank, what is the wonder that it should be con- 
tinued ? It is said, (if my memory serves me, by Sir Walter 
Raleigh,) " he that taketh up his rest to live by this profession 
shall hardly be an honest man." 

By depending upon war for a subsistence, a powerful in- 
ducement is given to desire it ; and when the question of war 
is to be decided, it is to be feared that the whispers of interest 
will prevail, and that humanity, and religion, and conscience 
will be sacrificed to promote it. 

Of those causes of war which consist in the ambition of 
princes or statesmen or commanders, it is not necessary to 
speak, because no one to whom the world will listen is will- 
ing to defend them. 

Statesmen however have, besides ambition, many purposes 
of nice policy which make wars convenient : and when they 
have such purposes, they are sometimes cool speculators in 
the lives of men. They who have much patronage have 
many dependents, and they who have many dependents have 
much power. By a war, thousands become dependent on a 
minister ; and if he be disposed, he can often pursue schemes 
of guilt, and intrench himself in unpunished wickedness, be- 
cause the war enables him to silence the clamour of opposi- 
tion by an office, and to secure the suffrages of venality by a 
bribe. He has therefore many motives to war — in ambition, 
that does not refer to conquest ; or in fear, that extends only 
to his office or his pocket : and fear or ambition, are some- 
times more interesting considerations than the happiness and 
the lives of men. Cabinets have in truth, many secret mo- 
tives to wars of which the people know little. They talk in 
public of invasions of right, or breaches of treaty, of the sup- 
port of honour, of the necessity of retaliation, when these mo- 
tives have no influence on their determinations. Some un- 
told purpose of expediency, or the private quarrel of a prince, 



CHAP. XIX.] 



CAUSES OF WAR. 



519 



or the pique or anger of a minister, are often the real motives 
to a contest, whilst its promoters are loudly talking of the 
^honour or the safety of the country. 

But perhaps the most operative cause of the popularity of 
war, and of the facility with which we engage in it, consists 
in this ; that an idea of glory is attached to military exploits, 
' and of honour to the military profession. The glories of 
battle, and of those who perish in it, or who return in triumph 
to their country, are favourite topics of declamation with the 
historian, the biographer, and the poet. They have told us a 
thousand times of dying heroes, who " resign their lives amidst 
the joys of conquest, and, filled with their country's glory, 
smile in death;" and thus every excitement that eloquence 
and genius can command, is employed to arouse that ambition 
of fame which can be gratified only at the expense of blood. 

Into the nature and principled of this fame and glory we 
have already enquired ; and in the view alike of virtue and 
of intellect, they are low and bad.* " Glory is the most 
selfish of all passions except love. "f — " I cannot tell how or 
why the love of glory is a less selfish principle than the love 
of riches.^J Philosophy and intellect may therefore well 
despise it, and Christianity silently, yet emphatically, con- 
demns it. " Christianity," says Bishop Watson, " quite an- 
nihilates the disposition for martial glory." Another testi- 
mony, and from an advocate of war, goes further — No part of 
the heroic character is the subject of the " commendation, or 
precepts, or example of Christ f but the character the most 
opposite to the heroic is the subject of them all.§ 

Such is the foundation of the glory which has for so many 
ages deceived and deluded multitudes of mankind ! Upon this 
foundation a structure has been raised so vast, so brilliant, so 
i attractive, that the greater portion of mankind are content to 
gaze in admiration, without any inquiry into its basis or 
any solicitude for its durability. If, however, it should be, 
that the gorgeous temple will be able to stand only till Chris- 
tian truth and light become predominant, it surely will be 
wise of those who seek a niche in its apartments as their para- 
mount and final good, to pause ere they proceed. If they de- 
sire a reputation that shall outlive guilt and fiction, let them 
look to the basis of military fame. If this fame should one 
day sink into oblivion and contempt, it will not be the first in- 
stance in which wide-spread glory has been found to be a 

* See Essay II, c. 10. t West. Rev. No. 1, for 1827. 

t Mem. and Rem. of the late Jane Taylor. 
§ Paley : Evidences of Christianity, p. 2, c. 2. 



520 



CAUSES OF WAR. 



[essay nit 



glittering bubble, that has burst and been forgotten. Look at 
the days of chivalry. Of the ten thousand Quixottes of the 
middle ages, where is now the honour or the fame ? yet, 
poets once sang their praises, and the chronicler of their 
achievements believed he was recording an everlasting fame. 
Where are now the glories of the tournament ? glories 
" Of which all Europe rang from side to side." 

Where is the champion whom princesses caressed and no- 
bles envied ? Where are now the triumphs of Duns Seotus, 
and where are the folios that perpetuated his fame 1 The 
glories of war have indeed outlived these ; human passions 
are less mutable than human follies ; but I am willing to avow 
my conviction, that these glories are alike destined to sink 
into forgetfulness ; and that the time is approaching when the 
applauses of heroism, and the splendours of conquest, will be 
remembered only as follies and iniquities that are past. Let 
him who seeks for fame, other than that which an era of 
Christian purity will allow, make haste ; for every hour that 
he delays its acquisition will shorten its duration. This is 
certain if there be certainty in the promises of heaven. 

Of this factitious glory as a cause of War, Gibbon speaks 
in the Decline and Fall. " As long as mankind," says he, 
" shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their des- 
troyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory 
will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters." " 'Tis 
strange to imagine," says the Earl of Shaftesbury t that war, 
which of all things appears the most savage, should be the 
passion of the most heroic spirits." — But he gives us the rea- 
son. — "By a small misguidance of the affection, a lover of 
mankind becomes a ravager ; a hero and deliverer becomes 
an oppressor and destroyer." * 

These are amongst the great perpetual causes of war. And 
Avhat are they? First, that we do not enquire whether War 
is right or wrong. Secondly, That we are habitually haughty 
and irritable in our intercourse with other nations. Thirdly, 
That War is a source of profit to individuals, and establishes 
■professions which are very convenient to the middle and higher 
ranks of life. Fourthly, That it gratifies the ambition of pub- 
lic men, and serves the purposes of state policy. Fifthly, that 
notions of glory are attached to Warlike affairs ; which glory 
is factitious and impure. 

In the view of reason, and especially in the view of religion, 
what is the character of these Causes ? Are they pure X 

* Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour. 



CHAP. XIX.] 



CONSEQUENCES OF WAR. 



521 



Are they honourable ? Are they, when connected with their 
effects, compatible with the Moral Law ? — Lastly, and es- 
pecially, is it probable that a system of which these are the 
great ever-during Causes, can itself be good or right ? 

CONSEQUENCES OF WAR 

To expatiate upon the miseries which war brings upon 
mankind, appears a trite and a needless employment. We 
all know that its evils are great and dreadful. Yet the very 
circumstance that the knowledge is familiar, may make it un- 
operative upon our sentiments and our conduct. It is not the 
intensity of misery, it is not the extent of evil alone, which is 
necessary to animate us to that exertion which evil and mis- 
ery should excite : if it were, surely we should be much more 
averse than we now are to contribute, in word or in action, 
to the promotion of War. 

But there are mischiefs attendant upon the system which 
are not to every man thus familiar, and on which, for that reason, 
it is expedient to remark. In referring especially to some of 
those Moral consequences of war which commonly obtain little 
of our attention, it may be observed, that social and political 
considerations are necessarily involved in the moral tendency : 
for the happiness of society is always diminished by the dimi- 
nution of morality; and enlightened policy knows that the 
greatest support of a state is the virtue of the people. 

And yet the reader should bear in mind — what nothing but 
the frequency of the calamity can make him forget — the in- 
tense sufferings and irreparable deprivations which one battle 
inevitably entails upon private life. These are calamities of 
which the world thinks little, and which, if it thought of them, 
it could not remove. A father or a husband can seldom be 
replaced ; a void is created in the domestic felicity which 
there is little hope that the future will fill. By the slaughter 
of a war, there are thousands who weep in unpitied and un- 
noticed secrecy, whom the world does not see ; and thousands 
who retire, in silence, to hopeless poverty, for whom it does 
not care. To these, the conquest of a kingdom is of little im- 
portance. The loss of a protector or a friend is ill repaid by 
empty glory. An addition of territory may add titles to a king, 
but the brilliancy of a crown throws little light upon domestic 
gloom. It is not my intention to insist upon these calamities, 
intense, and irreparable, and unnumbered as they are ; but 
those who begin a war without taking them into their esti- 
mates of its consequences, must be regarded as, at most, half- 

44* 



522 



CONSEQUENCES OF WAR. 



[essay III. 



seeing politicians. The legitimate object of political meas- 
ures is the good of the people ; — and a great sum of good a 
war must produce, if it out-balances even this portion of its 

mischiefs. 

Nor should we be forgetful of that dreadful part of all war- 
fare, the destruction of mankind. The frequency with which 
this destruction is represented to our minds, has almost ex- 
tinguished our perception of its awfulness and horror. Be- 
tween the years 1141 and 1815, an interval of six hundred 
and seventy years, our country has been at war, with France 
alone, two hundred and sixty-six years. If to this we add our 
wars with other countries, probably we shall find that one- 
half of the last six or seven centuries has been spent by this 
country in war ! A dreadful picture of human violence ! 
How many of our fellow-men, of our fellow-Christians, have 
these centuries of slaughter cut off! What is the sum total 
of the misery of their deaths ?* 

When political writers expatiate upon the extent and the evils 
of taxation, they do not sufficiently bear in mind the reflec- 
tion, that almost all our taxation is the effect of war. A man 
declaims upon national debts. He ought to declaim upon the 
parent of those debts. Do we reflect that if heavy taxation 
entails evils and misery upon the community, that misery and 
those evils are inflicted upon us by war 1 The amount of sup- 
plies in Queen Anne's reign was about seventy millions ;f 
and of this about sixty-six millionsj was expended in war. 
Where is our equivalent good 1 

Such considerations ought, undoubtedly, to influence the 
conduct of public men in their disagreements with other states, 
even if higher considerations do not influence it. They ought 
to form part of the calculations of the evil of hostility. I be- 
lieve that a greater mass of human suffering and loss of hu- 
man enjoyment are occasioned by the pecuniary distresses of 
a war, than any ordinary advantages of a war compensate. 
But this consideration seems too remote to obtain our notice. 
Anger at offence or hope of triumph, overpowers the sober cal- 
culations of reason, and outbalances the weight of after and 
long-continued calamities. The only question appears to be, 
whether taxes enough for a war can be raised, and whether 

* " Since the peace of Amiens more than four millions of human 
beings have been sacrificed to the personal ambition of Napoleon Buona- 
parte." — Quarterly Review, 25 Art. 1, 1825. 

t The sum was £69,815,457. 

X The sum was £65,853,799. " The nine years' war of 1739, cost 
this nation upwards of sixty-four millions without gaining any object." - 
Chalmer's Estimate of the Strength of Great Britian. 



CHAP. XIX.] 



CONSEQUENCES OF WAR. 



523 



a people will be willing to pay them. But the great question 
ought to be, (setting questions of Christianity aside,) whether 
the nation will gain as much by the war as they will lose by 
taxation and its other calamities. 

If the happiness of the people were, what it ought to be, 
the primary and the ultimate object of national measures, I 
think that the policy which pursued this object, would often 
find that even the pecuniary distresses resulting from a war 
make a greater deduction from the quantum of felicity, than 
those evils which the war may have been designed to avoid. 

" But war does more harm to the morals, of men than even 
to their property and persons."* If, indeed, it depraves our 
morals more than it injures our persons and deducts from our 
property, how enormous must its mischiefs be ! 

I do not know whether the greater sum of moral evil result- 
ing from war, is suffered by those who are immediately en- 
gaged in it, or by the public. The mischief is most exten- 
sive upon the community, but upon the profession it is mo^t 
intense. 

" Rara fides pietasque viris qui castra sequuntur." — Lucan. 

No one pretends to applaud the morals of an army, and for 
its religion, few think of it at all. The fact is too notorious 
to be insisted upon, that thousands who had filled their sta- 
tions in life with propriety, and been virtuous from principle, 
have lost, by a military life, both the practice and the regard 
of morality ; and when they have become habituated to the 
vices of war, have laughed at their honest and plodding breth- 
ren, who are still spiritless enough for virtue or stupid enough 
for piety. 

Does any man ask, What occasions depravity in military 
life ? I answer in the words of Robert Hall,f " War reverses, 
with respect to its objects, all the rules of morality. It is 
nothing less than a temporary repeal of all the principles of 
virtue. It is a system out of which almost all the virtues are 
excluded, and in which nearly all the vices are incorporated." 
And it requires no sagacity to discover, that those who are 
engaged in a practice which reverses all the rules of morality 
— which repeals all the principles of virtue, and in which 
nearly all the vices are incorporated, cannot, without the 
intervention of a miracle, retain their njinds and morals un- 
depraved. 

Look for illustration to the familiarity with the plunder of 
property and the slaughter of mankind which war induces. 
* Erasmus. t Sermon, 1822. 



524 



CONSEQUENCES OF WAR. 



[ESSAY HI. 



He who plunders the citizen of another nation without re- 
morse or reflection, and bears away the spoil with triumph, 
will inevitably lose something of his principles of probity.* 
He who is familiar with slaughter, who has himself often per- 
petrated it, and who exults in the perpetration, will not retain 
undepraved the principles of virtue. His moral feelings are 
blunted ; his moral vision is obscured ; his principles are 
shaken ; an inroad is made upon their integrity, and it is an 
inroad that makes after inroads the more easy. Mankind do 
not generally resist the influence of habit. If we rob and 
shoot those who ape ^ enemies" to-day, we are in some degree 
prepared to shoot and rob those who are not enemies to-mor- 
row. Law may indeed still restrain us from violence ; but 
the power and efficiency of Principle is diminished : and this 
alienation of the mind from the practice, the love, and the 
perception of Christian purity, therefore, of necessity extends 
its influence to the other circumstances of life. The ivhole 
e%il is imputable to war ; and we say that this evil forms a 
powerful evidence against it, whether we direct that evidence 
to the abstract question of its lawfulness, or to the practical 
question of its expediency. That can scarcely be lawful 
which necessarily occasions such wide-spread immorality. 
That can scarcely be expedient, which is so pernicious to 
virtue, and therefore to the state. 

The economy of war requires of every soldier an implicit 
submission to his superior ; and this submission is required 
of every gradation of rank to that above it. " I swear to 
obey the orders of the officers who are set over me : so help 
me, God." This system may be necessary to hostile opera- 
tions, but I think it is unquestionably adverse to intellectual 
and moral excellence. 

The very nature of unconditional obedience implies the 
relinquishment of the use of the reasoning powers. Little 
more is required of the soldier than that he be obedient and 
brave. His obedience is that of an animal, which is moved 
by a goad or a bit, without judgment of his own ; and his 
bravery is that of a mastiff that fights whatever mastiff others 
put before him.f It is obvious that in such agency the intel- 
lect and the understanding have little part. Now I think that 

* See Smollett's England, vol. 4, p. 376. " This terrible truth, which 
I cannot help repeating, »ust be acknowledged: — indifference and selfish- 
ness are the predominant feelings in an army." Miot's Memoires de 
l'Expedition en Egypte, &c. Mem. in the MSS. 

t By one article of the Constitutional Code even of republican France, 
" the army were expressly prohibited from deliberating on any subject 
whatever." 



CHAP. XIX.] CONSEQUENCES OF WAR. 



525 



this is important. He who, with whatever motive, resigns* 
the direction of his conduct implicitly to another, surely can- 
not retain that erectness and independence of mind, that 
manly consciousness of mental freedom, which is one of the 
highest privileges of our nature. A British Captain declares 
that " the tendency of strict discipline, such as prevails on 
board ships of war, where almost every act of a man's life 
is regulated by the orders of his superiors, is to weaken the 
faculty of independent thought."* Thus the Rational Being 
becomes reduced in the intellectual scale : an encroachment 
is made upon the integrity of its independence. God has 
given us, individually, capacities for the regulation of our in- 
dividual conduct. To resign its direction, therefore, to the 
absolute disposal of another, appears to be an unmanly and 
unjustifiable relinquishment of the privileges which he has 
granted to us. And the effect is obviously bad ; for although 
no character will apply universally to any large class of men, 
and although the intellectual character of the military profes- 
sion does not result only from this unhappy subjection ; yet 
it will not be disputed, that the honourable exercise of intel- 
lect amongst that profession is not relatively great. It is not 
from them that we expect, because it is not from them 
that we generally find, those vigorous exertions of intellect 
which dignify our nature and which extend the boundaries 
of human knowledge. 

But the intellectual effects of military subjection form but 
a small portion of its evils. The great mischief is, that it 
requires the relinquishment of our moral agency ; that it re- 
quires us to do what is opposed to our consciences, and what 
we know to be wrong. A soldier must obey, how criminal 
soever the command, and how criminal soever he knows it to 
be. It is certain, that of those who compose armies, many 
commit actions which they believe to be wicked, and which 
they would not commit but for the obligations of a military 
life. Although a soldier determinately believes that the war 
is unjust, although he is convinced that his particular part of 
the service is atrociously criminal, still he must proceed — he 
must prosecute the purpos.es of injustice or robbery, he must 
participate in the guilt, and be himself a robber. 

To what a situation is a rational and responsible being re- 
duced, who commits actions, good or bad, at the word of an- 
other 1 I can conceive no greater degradation. It is the 

* Captain Basil Hall : Voyage to Loo Choo, c. 2. We make no dis- 
tinction between the military and naval professions, and employ one word 
to indicate both. * 



526 



CONSEQUENCE 3 OF WAR. 



[ESSAY III. 



lowest, the final abjectness of the moral nature. It is this 
if we abate the glitter of war, and if we add this glitter it is 
nothing more. 

Such a resignation of our moral agency is not contended 
for, or tolerated in any one other circumstance of human life. 
War stands upon this pinnacle of depravity alone. She, only, 
in the supremacy of crime, has told us that she has abolished 
even the obligation to be virtuous. 

Some writers who have perceived the monstrousness of 
this system, have told us that a soldier should assure himself, 
before he engages in a war, that it is a lawful and just one ; 
and they acknowledge that, if he does not feel this assurance, 
he is a " murderer." But how is he to know that the war is 
just ? It is frequently difficult for the people distinctly to 
discover what the objects of a war are. And if the soldier 
knew that it was just in its commencement, how is he to 
know that it will continue just in its prosecution ? Every 
war is, in some parts of its course, wicked and unjust ; and 
who can tell what that course will be ? You say — When he 
discovers any injustice or wickedness, let him withdraw : we 
answer, He cannot ; and the truth is, that there is no way of 
avoiding the evil, but by avoiding the army. 

It is an enquiry of much interest, under what circumstances 
of responsibility a man supposes himself to be placed, who 
thus abandons and violates his own sense of rectitude and of 
his duties. Either he is responsible for his actions, or he is 
not ; and the question is a serious one to determine.* Chris- 
tianity has certainly never stated any cases in which personal 
responsibility ceases. If she admits such cases, she has at 
least not told us so ; but she has told us, explicitly and repeat- 
edly, that she does require individual obedience and impose 
individual responsibility. She has made no exceptions to 
the imperativeness of her obligations, whether we are re- 
quired by others to neglect them or not ; and I can discover 
in her sanctions no reason to suppose, that in her final adju- 
dications she admits the plea, that another required us to do 
that which she required us to forbear. — But it may be feared, 
it may be believed, that how little soever religion will abate 

* Vattel indeed tells us that soldiers ought to " submit their judgment." 
" What," says he, " would be the consequence, if at every step of the 
Sovereign the subjects were at liberty to weigh the justice of his reasons, 
and refuse to march to a war which, to them, might appear unjust ?" 
Law of Nat. b. 3, c. 11, sec. 187. Gisborne holds very different lan- 
guage. " It is," he says, " at all times the duty of an Englishman stead- 
fastly to decline obeying any orders of his superiors, which his conscience 
should tell him were in any degree impious or unjust." Duties of Men. 



CHAP. XIX.] 



CONSEQUENCES OF WAR. 



527 



of the responsibility of those who obey, she will impose not 
a little upon those who command. They, at least, are an- 
swerable for the enormities of war : unless, indeed, any one 
shall tell me that responsibility attaches nowhere ; that that 
which would be wickedness in another man, is innocence in 
a soldier ; and that heaven has granted to the directors of war 
a privileged immunity, by virtue of which crime incurs no 
guilt and receives no punishment. 

And here it is fitting to observe, that the obedience to arbi- 
trary power which war exacts, possesses more of the charac- 
ter of servility, and even of slavery, than we are accustomed 
to suppose. I will acknowledge that when I see a company 
of men in a stated dress, and of a stated colour, ranged, rank 
and file, in the attitude of obedience, turning or walking at 
the word of another, now changing the position of a limb and 
now altering the angle of a foot, I feel that there is something 
in the system that is wrong — something incongruous with the 
proper dignity, with the intellectual station of man. I do not 
know whether I shall be charged with indulging in idle senti- 
ment or idle affectation. If I hold unusual language upon the 
subject, let it be remembered that the subject is itself unusual. 
I will retract my affectation and sentiment, if the reader will 
show me any case in life parallel to that to which I have ap- 
plied it. 

No one questions whether military power be arbitrary. 
And what are the customary feelings of mankind with ^respect 
to a subjection to arbitrary power ? How do we feel and 
think, when we hear of a person who is obliged to do what- 
ever other men command, and who, the moment he refuses, 
is punished for attempting to be free ? If a man orders his 
servant to do a given action, he is at liberty, if he think the 
action improper, or if, from any other cause, he choose not to 
do it, to refuse his obedience. Far other is the nature of 
military subjection. The soldier is compelled to obey, what- 
ever be his inclination or his will. It matters not whether 
he have entered the service voluntarily or involuntarily. Be- 
ing in it, he has but one alternative — submission to arbitrary 
power, or punishment — the punishment of death perhaps — 
for refusing to submit. Let the reader imagine to himself 
any other cause or purpose for which freemen shall be sub- 
jected to such a condition, and he will then see that condi- 
tion in its proper light. The influence of habit and the gloss 
of public opinion make situations that would otherwise be 
loathsome and revolting, not only tolerable but pleasurable. 
Take away this influence and- this gloss from the situation of 



528 



CONSEQUENCES OF WAR. 



[essay III. 



• a soldier, and what should we call it ? We should call it a 
state of degradation and of bondage. But habit and public 
opinion, although they may influence notions, cannot alter 
things. It is a state intellectually, morally, and politically, 
of bondage and degradation. 

But the reader will say that this submission to arbitrary 
power is necessary to the prosecution of war. I know it ; 
and that is the very point for observation. It is because it is 
necessary to war that it is noticed here : for a brief but clear 
argument results : — That custom to which such a state of 
mankind is necessary, must inevitably be bad ; — it must in- 
evitably be adverse to rectitude and to Christianity. So de- 
plorable is the bondage which war produces, that we often 
hear, during a war, of subsidies from one nation to another, 
for the loan, or rather for the purchase of an army. — To bor- 
row ten thousand men who know nothing of our quarrel and 
care nothing for it, to help us to slaughter their fellows ! To 
pay for their help in guineas to their sovereign ! Well has it 
been exclaimed, 

" War is a game, that, were their subjects wise, 
Kings would not play at." 

A prince sells his subjects as a farmer sells his cattle ; and 
sends them to destroy a people, whom, if they had been higher 
bidders, he would perhaps have sent them to defend. The 
historian has to record such miserable facts, as that a poten- 
tate's troops were, during one war, " hired to the king of Great 
Britain and his enemies alternately, as the scale of conveni- 
ence happened to preponderate !"* That a large number of 
persons with the feelings and reason of men, should coolly 
listen to the bargain of their sale, should compute the guineas 
that will pay for their blood, and should then quietly be led 
to a place where they are to kill people towards whom they 
have no animosity, is simply wonderful. To what has invet- 
eracy of habit reconciled mankind ! I have no capacity of 
supposing a case of slavery, if slavery be denied in this. 
Men have been sold in another continent, and philanthropy 
has been shocked and aroused to interference ; yet these men 
were sold not to be slaughtered but to work : but of the pur- 
chases and sales of the world's political slave-dealers, what 
does philanthropy think or care ? There is no reason to doubt 
that, upon other subjects of horror, similar familiarity of habit 
would produce similar effects ; or that he who heedlessly 
contemplates the purchase of an army, wants nothing but this 

* Smollett's England, v. 4, p, 330. 



CHAP. XIX.] 



CONSEQUENCES OF WAR. 



529 



familiarity to make him heedlessly look on at the commission 
of parricide. 

Yet I do not know whether, in its effects on the military 
character, the greatest moral evil of war is to be sought. 
Upon the community its effects are indeed less apparent, be- 
cause they who are the secondary subjects of the immoral 
influence, are less intensely affected by it than the immediate 
agents of its diffusion. But whatever is deficient in the de- 
gree of evil, is probably more than compensated by its extent. 
The influence is like that of a continual and noxious vapour : 
we neither regard nor perceive it, but it secretly undermines 
the moral health. 

Every one knows that vice is contagious. The depravity 
of one man has always a tendency to deprave his neighbours ; 
and it therefore requires no unusual acuteness to discover, 
that the prodigious mass of immorality and crime which is 
accumulated by a war, must have a powerful effect in " de- 
moralizing" the public. But there is one circumstance con- 
nected with the injurious influence of war, which makes it 
peculiarly operative and malignant. It is, that we do not hate 
or fear the influence, and do not fortify ourselves against it. 
Other vicious influences insinuate themselves into our minds by 
stealth ; but this we receive with open embrace. Glory, and 
patriotism, and bravery, and conquest, are bright and glittering 
things. Who, when he is looking, delighted, upon these 
things, is armed against the mischiefs which they veil ? 

The evil is, in its own nature, of almost universal opera- 
tion. During a war, a whole people become familiarized 
with the utmost excesses of enormity — with the utmost in- 
tensity of human wickedness — and they rejoice and exult in 
them ; so that there is probably not an individual in a hundred 
who does not lose something of his Christian principles by a 
ten years' war. 

" It is, in my mind," said Fox, " no small misfortune to live 
at a period when scenes of horror and blood are frequent." 
— " One of the most evil consequences of war is, that it tends 
to render the hearts of mankind callous to the feelings and 
sentiments of humanity."* 

Those who know what the moral law of God is, and who 
feel an interest in the virtue and the happiness of the world, 
will not regard the animosity of Party and the restlessness of 
resentment which are produced by a war, as trifling evils. 
If any thing be opposite to Christianity, it is retaliation and 
revenge. In the obligation to restrain these dispositions, 
* Fell's Life of C. J. Fox. 
45 



530 



CONSEQUENCES OF WAR. 



[essay III. 



much of the characteristic placability of Christianity consists. 
The very essence and spirit of our religion ,are abhorrent from 
resentment. — The very essence and spirit of war are promotive 
of resentment ; and what, then, must be their mutual adverse- 
ness ? That war excites these passions, needs not to be proved. 
When a war is in contemplation, or when it has been begun, 
what are the endeavours of its promoters 1 They animate us 
by every artifice of excitement to hatred and animosity. Pam- 
phlets, Placards, Newspapers, Caricatures — every agent is in 
requisition to irritate us into malignity. Nay, dreadful as it 
is, the pulpit resounds with declamations to stimulate our too 
sluggish resentment, and to invite us to slaughter. — And thus 
the most unchristianlike of all our passions, the passion which 
it is most the object of our religion to repress, is excited and 
fostered. Christianity cannot be flourishing under circum- 
stances like these. The more effectually we are animated to 
war, the more nearly we extinguish the dispositions of our 
religion. War and Christianity are like the opposite ends of 
a balance, of which one is depressed by the elevation of the 
other. 

These are the consequences which make War dreadful to 
a state. Slaughter and devastation are sufficiently terrible, 
but their collateral evils are their greatest. It is the immoral 
feeling that war diffuses — it is the depravation of Principle, 
which forms the mass of its mischief. 

To attempt to pursue the consequences of war through all 
their ramifications of evil, were, however, both endless and 
vain. It is a moral gangrene, which diffuses its humours 
through the whole political and social system. To expose its 
mischief, is to exhibit all evil ; for there is no evil which it 
does not occasion, and it has much that is peculiar to itself. 

That, together, with its multiplied evils, war produces some 
good, I have no wish to deny. I know that it sometimes 
elicits valuable qualities which had otherwise been concealed, 
and that it often produces collateral and adventitious, and some- 
times immediate advantages. If all this could be denied, it 
would be needless to deny it ; for it is of no consequence to 
the question whether it be proved. That any wide-extended 
system should not produce some benefits, can never happen. 
In such a system, it were an unheard-of-purity of evil, which 
was evil without any mixture of good. — But, to compare the 
ascertained advantages of war with its ascertained mischiefs, 
and to maintain a question as to the preponderance of the 
balance, implies, not ignorance, but disingenuousness, not in- 
capacity to decide, but a voluntary concealment of truth. 



CHAP. XIX.] 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



531 



And why do we insist upon these consequences of War? 
— Because the review prepares the reader for a more accu- 
rate judgment respecting its lawfulness. Because it reminds 
him what War is, and because, knowing and remembering 
what it is, he will be the better able to compare it with the 
Standard of Rectitude. 

LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 

I would recommend to him who would estimate the moral 
character of war, to endeavour to forget that he has ever pre- 
sented to his mind the idea of a battle, and to endeavour to 
contemplate it with those emotions which it would excite in 
the mind of a being who had never before heard of human 
slaughter. The prevailing emotions of such a being would 
be astonishment and horror. If he were shocked by the hor- 
ribleness of the scene, he would be amazed at its absurdity. 
That a large number of persons should assemble by agreement, 
and deliberately kill one another, appears to the understanding 
a proceeding so preposterous, so monstrous, that I think a 
being such as I have supposed would inevitably conclude that 
they were mad. Nor is it likely, if it were attempted to ex- 
plain to him some motives to such conduct, that he would be 
able to comprehend how any possible circumstances could 
make it reasonable. The ferocity and prodigious folly of the 
act would, in his estimation, outbalance the weight of every 
conceivable motive, and he would turn unsatisfied away, 

" Astonished at the madness of Mankind." 

There is an advantage in making suppositions such as 
these ; because when the mind has been familiarized to a 
practice, however monstrous or inhuman, it loses some of its 
sagacity of moral perception; the practice is perhaps veiled 
in glittering fictions, or the mind is become callous in its 
enormities. But if the subject is, by some circumstance, pre- 
sented to the mind unconnected with any of its previous asso- 
ciations, we see it with a new judgment and new feelings ; 
and wonder, perhaps, that we have not felt so or thought so 
before. And such occasions it is the part of a wise man to 
seek ; since, if they never happen to us, it will often be diffi- 
cult for us accurately to estimate the qualities of human ac- 
tions, or to determine whether we approve them from a deci- 
sion of our judgment, or whether we yield to them only the 
acquiescence of habit. 

It may properly be a subject of wonder that the arguments 



532 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



[ESSAY III. 



which are brought to justify a custom such as war receive so 
little investigation. It must be a studious ingenuity of mis- 
chief which could devise a practice more calamitous or horri- 
ble ; and yet it is a practice of which it rarely occurs to us to 
enquire into the necessity, or to ask whether it cannot be, or 
ought not to be avoided. In one truth, however, all will ac- 
quiesce — that the arguments in favour of such a practice 
should be unanswerably strong. 

Let it not be said that the experience and the practice of 
other ages have superseded the necessity of enquiry in our 
own ; that there can be no reason to question the lawfulness of 
that which has been sanctioned by forty centuries ; or that he 
who presumes to question it, is amusing himself with schemes 
of visionary philanthropy. " There is not, it may be," says 
Lord Clarendon, " a greater obstruction to the investigation 
of truth or the improvement of knowledge, than the too fre- 
quent appeal, and the too supine resignation of our under- 
standing to antiquity." * Whosoever proposes an alteration 
of existing institutions, will meet, from some men, "with a sort 
of instinctive opposition, which appears to be influenced by 
no process of reasoning, by no considerations of propriety or 
principles of rectitude, which defends the existing system be- 
cause it exists, and which would have equally defended its 
opposite if that had been the oldest. " Nor is it out of mod- 
esty that we have this resignation, or that we do, in truth, 
think those who have gone before us to be wiser than our- 
selves ; we are as proud and as peevish as any of our pro- 
genitors ; but it is out of laziness ; we will rather take their 
words than take the pains to examine the reason they gov- 
erned themselves by."f To those who urge objections from 
the authority of ages, it is, indeed, a sufficient answer to say, 
that they apply to every long-continued custom. Slave-dealers 
urged them against the friends of the abolition : Papists urged 
them against WicklifTe and Luther, and the Athenians proba- 
bly thought it a good objection to an apostle, "that he seemed 
to be a setter forth of strange gods." 

It is some satisfaction to be able to give, on a question of 
this nature, the testimony of some great minds against the 
lawfulness of war, opposed, as these testimonies are, to the 
general prejudice and the general practice of the world. It 
has been observed by Beccaria, that " it is the fate of great 
truths to glow only like a flash of lightning amidst the dark 
clouds in which error has enveloped the universe ;" and if 
our testimonies are few or transient, it matters not, so that 
* Lord Clarendon's Essays. t Id. 



CHAP. XIX.] 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



533 



their light be the light of truth. There are, indeed, many, 
who in describing the horrible particulars of a siege or a bat- 
tle, indulge in some declamation on the horrors of war, such 
as has been often repeated, and often applauded, and as often 
forgotten. But such declamations are of little value and of 
little effect ; he who reads the next paragraph finds, probably, 
that he is invited to follow the 'path to glory and to victory ; — to 
share the hero's danger and ■partake the hero's praise ; and he 
soon discovers that the moralizing parts of his author are the 
impulse of feelings rather than of principles, and thinks that 
though it may be very well to write, yet it is better to forget 
them. 

There are, however, testimonies, delivered in the calm of 
reflection, by acute and enlightened men, which may reason- 
ably be allowed at least so much weight as to free the present 
enquiry from the charge of being wild or visionary. Chris- 
tianity indeed needs no such auxiliaries ; but if they induce 
an examination of her duties, a wise man will not wish them 
to be disregarded. 

" They who defend war," says Erasmus, " must defend the 
dispositions which lead to war : and these dispositions are ab- 
solutely forbidden by the gospel. — Since the time that Jesus 
Christ said, Put up thy sword into its scabbard, Christians 
ought not to go to war. — Christ suffered Peter to fall into an 
error in this matter, on purpose that, when he had put up Pe- 
ter's sworcl, it might remain no longer a doubt that war was 
prohibited, which, before that order had been considered as 
allowable." — " Wickliffe seems to have thought it was wrong 
to take away the life of man on any account, and that war 
was utterly unlawful."*— " I am persuaded," says the Bishop 
of Landaff, " that when the spirit of Christianity shall exert its 
proper influence war will cease throughout the whole Christian 
worlds \ " War," says the same acute prelate, " has practices 
and principles peculiar to itself, which but ill quadrate with the 
rule of moral rectitude, and are quite abhorrent from the benig- 
nity of Christianity "% A living writer of eminence bears 
this remarkable testimony : — " There is but one community 
of Christians in the world, and that unhappily of all commu- 
nities one of the smallest, enlightened enough to understand 
the prohibition of war by our Divine Master, in its plain, literal, 
and undeniable sense, and conscientious enough to obey it, 
subduing the very instinct of nature to obedience." $ 

Dr. Vicessimus Knox speaks in language equally specific : 

* Priestley. t Life of Bishop Watson. t Id. 

§ Southey's History of Brazil. 

45* 



534 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



(ESSAY III. 



— " Morality and religion forbid war, in its motives, conduct, 
and consequences."* 

Those who have attended to the mode in which the Moral 
Law is instituted in the expressions of the Will of God, Avill 
have no difficulty in supposing that it contains no specific pro- 
hibition of war. Accordingly, if we be asked for such a pro- 
hibition, in the manner in which Thou shalt not kill is directed 
to murder, we willingly answer that no such prohibition exists ; 
— and it is not necessary to the argument. Even those who 
would require such a prohibition, are themselves satisfied 
respecting the obligation of many negative duties on which 
there has been no specific decision in the New Testament. 
They believe that suicide is not lawful : yet Christianity 
never forbade it. It can be shown, indeed, by implication 
and inference, that suicide could not have been allowed, and 
with this they are satisfied. Yet there is, probably, in the 
Christian Scriptures, not a twentieth part of as much indirect 
evidence against the lawfulness of suicide as there is against 
the lawfulness of war. To those who require such a com- 
mand as Thou shalt not engage in war, it is therefore sufficient 
to reply, that they require that, which, upon this and upon 
many other subjects, Christianity has not seen fit to give. 

We have had many occasions to illustrate, in the course of 
these disquisitions, the characteristic nature of the Moral Law 
as a Law of Benevolence. This benevolence, is good-will 
and kind affections towards one another, is placed at the basis 
of practical morality- — it is " the fulfilling of the law" — it is 
the test of the validity of our pretensions to the Christian 
character. We have had occasion,, too, to observe, that this 
law of Benevolence is universally applicable to public affairs 
as well as to private, to the intercourse of nations as well as 
of men. Let us refer, then, to some of those requisitions of 
this law which appear peculiarly to respect the question of 
the moral character of war. 

Have peace one with another. — By this shall all men know 
that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. 

Walk with all loveliness and meekness, with long-suffering, 
forbearing one another in love. 

Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another ; 
love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous : not rendering evil for 
evil, or railing for railing. 

* Essays— The Paterines of Gazari of Italy in the 11th, 12th, and 
13th centuries " held that it was not lawful to bear arras or to kill man- 
kind." 



CHAP. XIX.] 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



535 



Be at peace among yourselves. See that none render evil for 
evil unto any man. — God hath called us to peace. 

Follow after love, patience, meekness .-—Be gentle, showing 
all meekness unto all men. — Live in peace. 

Lay aside all malice. — Put off anger, wrath, malice. — Let 
all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil 
speaking, be put away from you, with all malice. 

Avenge not yourselves. — If thine enemy hunger, feed him : 
if he thirst, give him drink. — Recompense to no man evil for 
evil. — Overcome evil with good. 

Now we ask of any man who looks, over these passages, 
What evidence do they convey respecting the lawfulness of 
war ? Could any approval or allowance of it have been sub- 
joined to these instructions, without obvious and most gross in- 
consistency 1 — But if war is obviously and most grossly incon- 
sistent with the general character of Christianity ; if war could 
not have been permitted by its teachers, without an egregious 
violation of their own precepts, we think that the evidence of its 
unlawfulness, arising from this general character alone, is as 
clear, as absolute, and as exclusive, as could have been con- 
tained in any form of prohibition whatever. 

But it is not from general principles alone that the law of 
Christianity respecting war may be deduced. — Ye have heard 
that it hath been said, " An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a 
tooth : but / say unto you, that ye resist not evil : but whoso- 
ever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other 
also. — Ye have heard that it hath been said, " Thou shalt 
love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy : but / say unto 
you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good 
to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use 
you, and persecute you ; for if ye love them which love you, 
what reward have ye ?"* 

Of the precepts from the Mount the most obvious charac- 
teristic is greater moral excellence and superior purity. They 
are directed, not so immediately to the external regulation of 
the conduct, as to the restraint and purification of the affec- 
tions. In another precept it is not enough that an unlawful 
passion be just so far restrained as to produce no open immo- 
rality — the passion itself is forbidden. The tendency of the 
discourse is to attach guilt not to action only but also to thought. 
It has been said, " Thou shalt not kill ; and whosoever shall 
kill shall be in danger of the judgment ; but / say unto you, 
'that whosoever is angry with his brother, without a cause, 
shall be in danger of the judgment.' "t Our Lawgiver at- 
* Mat. v. 38, &c. t Mat. v. 21, 22. 



536 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



[ESSAY III. 



taches guilt to some of the violent feelings, such as resent- 
ment, hatred, revenge ; and by doing this, we contend that 
he attaches cpii.lt to war. War cannot be carried on without 
those passions which he prohibits. Our argument, therefore, 
is syllogistical : — War cannot be allowed, if that which is 
necessary to war is prohibited. This, indeed, is precisely 
the argument of Erasmus : — " They who defend Avar must de- 
fend the dispositions which lead to war ; and these dispositions 
are absolutely forbidden" 

Whatever might have been allowed under the Mosaic insti- 
tution as to retaliation or resentment, Christianity says, "If 
ye love them only which love you, what reward have ye 1 — 
Love your enemies" Now what sort of love does that man 
bear towards his enemy, who runs him through with a bayonet ? 
W r e repeat, that the distinguishing duties of Christianity must 
be sacrificed when war is carried on. ■ The question is be- 
tween the abandonment of these duties and the abandonment 
of war, for both cannot be retained.* 

It is however objected, that the prohibitions, " Resist not 
evil," &c, are figurative ; and that they do not mean that no 
injury is to be punished, and no outrage to be repelled. It 
has been asked with complacent exultation, What would these 
advocates of peace say to him who struck them on the right 
cheek ? Would they turn to him the other ? What would 
these patient moralists say to him who robbed them of a coat ? 
Would they give a cloak also 1 What would these philan- 
thropists say to him who asked them to lend a hundred 
pounds 1 Would they not turn away ? This is argumentum 
ad hominem ; one example amongst the many, of that low and 
dishonest mode of intellectual warfare, which consists in ex- 
citing the feelings instead of convincing the understanding. 
It is however, some satisfaction, that the motive to the adop- 
tion of this mode of warfare is itself an indication of a bad 
cause ; for what honest reasoner would produce only a laugh, 
if he were able to produce conviction 1 

We willingly grant that not all the precepts from the Mount 
were designed to be literally obeyed in the intercourse of life. 
But what then 1 To show that their meaning is not literal, 

* Yet the retention of both has been, unhappily enough, attempted. 
In a late publication, of which a part is devoted to the defence of war, 
the author gravely recommends soldiers, whilst shooting and stabbing 
their enemies, to maintain towards them a feebng of good-will 
Tracts and Essays by the late William Hey, Esq., F. R. S. And Gis- 
borne, in his Duties of Men, holds similar language. He advises the 
soldier " never to forget the common ties of human nature by which he 
is inseparably united to his enemy !" 



CHAP. XIX.] LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 537 

is not to show that they do not forbid war. We ask in our turn, 
What is the meaning of the precepts 1 What is the meaning of 
" Resist not evil ?" Does it mean to allow bombardment — devas- 
tation — slaughter ? If it does not mean to allow all this, it does 
not mean to allow war. What, again, do the objectors say is the 
meaning of, " Love your enemies," or of, " Do good to them that 
hate you ?" Does it mean, " ruin their commerce" — " sink their 
fleets"- — " plunder their cities" — " shoot through their hearts ?" 
If the precept does not mean to allow all this, it does not mean 
to allow war. It is, therefore, not at all necessary here to 
discuss the precise signification of some of the precepts from 
the Mount, or to define what limits Christianity may admit in 
their application, since whatever exceptions she may allow, it 
is manifest what she does not allow :* for if we give to our 
objectors whatever license of interpretation they may desire, 
they cannot, without virtually rejecting the precepts, so inter- 
pet them as to make them allow war. 

Of the injunctions that are contrasted with, " eye for eye, 
and tooth for tooth," the entire scope and purpose is the 
suppression of the violent passions, and the inculcation of 
forbearance and forgiveness, and benevolence and love. They 
forbid not specifically, the act, but the spirit of war ; and this 
method of prohibition Christ ordinarily employed. He did 
not often condemn the individual doctrines or customs of the 
age, however false or however vicious ; but he condemned 
the passions by which only vice could exist, and inculcated 
the truth which dismissed every error. And this method was 
undoubtedly wise. In the gradugf alterations of human wicked- 
ness, many new species of profligacy might arise which the 
world hadnotyet practised: in the gradual vicissitudes of human 
error, many new fallacies might obtain which the world had 
not yet held : and how were these errors and these crimes to 
be opposed, but by the inculcation of principles that were ap- 
plicable to every crime and to every error 1 — principles which 
define not always what is wrong, but which tell us what 
always is right. 

There are two modes of censure or condemnation ; the one 
is to reprobate evil, and the other to enforce the opposite 

* It is manifest, from the New Testament, that we are not required to 
give a "cloak," in every case, to him who robs us of " a coat;" but I 
think it is equally manifest that we are required to give it not the less, 
because he has robbed us : the circumstance of his having robbed us, does 
not entail an obligation to give ; but it also does not impart a permission 
to withhold. If the necessities of the plunderer require relief, it is the 
business of the plundered to relieve them. 



538 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR, 



[essay in. 



good ; and both these modes were adopted by Christ. — He 
not only censured the passions that are necessary to war, but 
inculcated the affections which are most opposed to them. 
The conduct and dispositions upon which he pronounced his 
solemn benediction are exceedingly remarkable. They are 
these, and in this order : Poverty of Spirit ; — Mourning ; — 
Meekness ; — Desire of righteousness ; — Mercy ; — Purity of 
heart ; — Peace-making ; — Sufferance of persecution. Noav, 
let the reader try whether he can propose eight other quali- 
ties, to be retained as the general habit of the mind which 
shall be more incongruous with war. 

Of these benedictions, I think the most emphatical is that 
pronounced upon the Peace-makers. " Blessed are the peace- 
makers : for they shall be called the children of God."* 
Higher praise or a higher title, no man can receive. Now, I 
do not say that these benedictions contain an absolute proof 
that Christ prohibited war, but I say they make it clear that 
he did not approve it. He selected a number of subjects for 
his solemn approbation ; and not one of them possesses any 
congruity with war, and some of them cannot possibly exist 
in conjunction with it. Can any one believe that he who 
made this selection, and who distinguished the peace-makers 
with peculiar approbation, could have sanctioned his follow- 
ers in destroying one another ? Or does any one believe 
that those who were mourners, and meek and merciful and 
peace making, could at the same time perpetrate such destruc- 
tion ? If I be told that a temporary suspension of Christian 
dispositions, although necessary to the prosecution of war, does 
not imply the extinction of Christian principles ; or that these 
dispositions may be the general habit of the mind, and may 
both precede and follow the acts of war, I answer that this is 
to grant all that I require, since it grants that, when we en- 
gage in war, we abandon Christianity. 

When the betrayers^and murderers of Jesus Christ ap- 
proached him, his 'followers asked, "Shall we smite with the 
sword?" and without waiting for an answer, one of them " drew 
his sword, and smote the servant of the high priest, and cut 
off his right ear." — " Put up again thy sword into his place," 
said his Divine Master : " for all they that take the sword shall 
perish with the sword. "f There is the greater importance 
in the circumstances of this command, because it prohibited 
the destruction of human life in a cause in which there were 
the best of possible reasons for destroying it. The question, 
<« shall we smite with the sword," obviously refers to the de- 
* Matt. v. 9. t Matt. xxvi. 52. 



CHAP. XIX.] LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 539 

fence of the Redeemer from his assailants, by force of arms. 
His followers were ready to fight for him ; and if any reason 
for fighting could be a good one, they certainly had it. But 
if, in defence of Himself from the hands of bloody ruffians, his 
religion did not allow the sword to be drawn, for what reason 
can it be lawful to draw it ? The advocates of war are at least 
bound to show a better reason for destroying mankind, than is 
contained in this instance in which it was forbidden. 

It will, perhaps, be said, that the reason why Christ did 
not suffer himself to be defended by arms, was, that such a 
defence would have defeated the purpose for which he came 
into the world, namely, to offer up his life ; and that he him- 
self assigns this reason in the context. — He does indeed as- 
sign it ; but the primary reason, the immediate context is. — 
"for all they that take the sword shall perish with the 
sword." The reference to the destined sacrifice of his life is 
an after reference. This destined sacrifice might, perhaps, 
have formed a reason why his followers should not fight the?i, 
but the first, the principal reason which he assigned, was the 
reason why they should not fight at all. — Nor is it necessary 
to define the precise import of the words, " for all they that 
take the sword shall perish with the sword ;" since it is suffi- 
cient for us all, that they imply reprobation. 

It is with the apostles as with Christ himself. The inces- 
sant object of their discourses and writings is the inculcation 
of peace, of mildness, of placability. It might be supposed 
that they contiuually retained in prospect the reward which 
would attach to " Peace-makers." We ask the advocate of 
war, whether he discovers in the writings of the apostles or 
of the evangelists, any thing that indicates they approved of 
war. Do the tenor and spirit of their writings bear any con- 
gruity with it 1 Are not their spirit and tenor entirely dis- 
cordant with it 1 We are entitled to renew the observation, 
that the pacific nature of the apostolic writings, proves, pre- 
sumptively, that the writers disallowed war. That could not 
be allowed by them as sanctioned by Christianity, which out- 
raged all the principles that they inculcated. 

" Whence come wars and fightings among you?" is the in- 
terrogation of one of the apostles, to some whom he was re- 
proving for their unchristian conduct : and he answers himself 
by asking them, " Come they not hence, even of your lusts that 
war in your members ?"* This accords precisely with the 
argument that we urge. Christ forbade the passions which 
lead to war ; and now, when these passions had broken out 
* James iv. 1. 



540 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



[ESSAY III. 



into actual fighting, his apostle, in condemning war, refers it 
back to their passions. We have been saying that the passions 
are condemned, and therefore war ; and now, again, the apostle 
James thinks, like his master, that the most effectual way of 
eradicating war, is to eradicate the passions which produce it. 

In the following quotation we are told, not only what the 
arms of the apostles were not, but what they were. " The 
weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through 
God to the pulling down of strong holds ; and bringing into 
captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ"* I quote 
this, not only because it assures us that the apostles had no- 
thing to do with military weapons, but because it tells us the 
object of their warfare — the bringing every thought to the obe- 
dience of Christ ; and this object I would beg the reader to 
notice, because it accords with the object of Christ himself in 
his precepts from the Mount — the reduction of the thoughts to 
obedience. The apostle doubtless knew that, if he could ef- 
fect this, there was little reason to fear that his converts 
would slaughter one another. He followed the example of his 
master. He attacked wickedness in its root ; and inculcated 
those general principles of purity and forbearance, which, in 
their prevalence, would abolish war, as they would abolish all 
other crimes. The teachers of Christianity addressed them- 
selves not to communities but to men. They enforced the 
regulation of the passions and the rectification of the heart ; 
and it was probably clear to the perceptions of apostles, 
although it is not clear to some species of philosphy, that 
whatever duties were binding upon one man, were binding 
upon ten, upon a hundred, and upon the state. 
. War is not often directly noticed in the writings of the 
apostles. When it is noticed, it is condemned, just in that 
way in which we should suppose any thing would be con- 
demned that was notoriously opposed to the whole system — 
just as murder is condemned at the present day. Who can 
find, in modem books, that murder is formally censured ? We 
may find censures of its motives, of its circumstances, of its 
degrees of atrocity ; but the act itself no one thinks of censur- 
ing, because every one knows that it is wicked. Setting stat- 
utes aside, I doubt whether, if an Otaheitan should choose to 
argue that Christians allow murder because he cannot find it 
formally prohibited in their writings, we should not be at a 
loss to find direct evidence against him. And it arises, per- 
haps, from the same causes, that a formal prohibition of war 
is not to be found in the writings of the apostles. I do not 
* 2 Cor. x. 4. 



CHAP. XIX.] 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



541 



believe ihey imagined that Christianity would ever be charged 
with allowing it. They write, as if the idea of such a charge 
never occurred to them. They did, nevertheless, virtually 
forbid it ; unless any one shall say that they disallowed the 
passions which occasion war, but did not disallow war itself ; 
'that Christianity prohibits the cause but permits the effect; 
which is much the same as to say, that a law which forbade 
the administering arsenic did not forbid poisoning. 

But although the general tenor of Christianity and some of 
its particular precepts appear distinctly to condemn and dis- 
allow war, it is certain that different conclusions have been 
formed ; and many, who are undoubtedly desirous of perform- 
ing the duties of Christianity, have failed to perceive that war 
is unlawful to them. 

In examining the arguments by which war is defended, two 
important considerations should be borne in mind — first, that 
those who urge them are not simply defending war, they are 
also defending themselves. If war be wrong, their conduct is 
wrong ; and the desire of self-justification prompts them to 
give importance to whatever arguments they can advance in 
its favour. Their decisions may, therefore, with reason, be 
regarded as in some degree the decisions of a party in the 
cause. The other consideration is, that the defenders of war 
come to the discussion prepossessed in its favour. They are 
attached to it by their earliest habits. They do not examine 
the question as a philosopher would examine it, to whom the 
subject was new. Their opinions had been already formed. 
They are discussing a question which they had already deter- 
mined : and every man, who is acquainted with the effects of 
evidence on the mind, knows that under these circumstances 
a very slender argument in favour of the previous opinions, 
possesses more influence than many great ones against, it. 
Now all this cannot be predicated of the advocates of peace j 
they are opposing the influence of habit ; they are contending 
against the general prejudice ; they are, perhaps, dismissing 
their own previous opinions : and I would submit it to the 
candour of the reader, that these circumstances ought to 
attach, in his mind, suspicion to the validity of the arguments 
against us. 

The narrative of the centurion who came to Jesus at Ca- 
pernaum to solicit him to heal his servant, furnishes one of 
these arguments. It is said that Christ found no fault with 
the centurion's profession ; that if he had disallowed the mili- 
tary character, he would have taken this opportunity of cen- 
suring it ; and that, instead of such censure, he highly com- 

46 



542 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



[ESSAY III. 



mended the officer, and said of him, " I have not found so 
great faith, no, not in Israel."* 

An obvious weakness in this argument is this ; that it is 
founded not upon an approval, but upon silence. Approbation 
is indeed expressed, but it is directed, not to his arms, but to 
his " faith ;" and those who will read the narrative, will find 
that no occasion was given for noticing his profession. He 
came to Christ, not as a military officer, but simply as a de- 
serving man. A censure of his profession might undoubtedly 
have been pronounced, but it would have been a gratuitous 
censure, a censure that did not naturally arise out of the case. 
The objection is, in its greatest weight, presumptive only ; 
for none can be supposed to countenance every thing that he 
does not condemn. To observe silence^ in such cases, was 
indeed the ordinary practice of Christ. He very seldom in- 
terfered with the civil or political institutions of the world. 
In these institutions there was sufficient wickedness around 
him ; but some of them flagitious as they were, he never, on 
any occasion, even noticed. His mode of condemning and 
extirpating political vices, was, by the inculcation of general 
rules of purity, which, in their eventual and universal appli- 
cation, would reform them all. 

But how happens it that Christ did not notice the centu- 
rion's religion ? He surely was an idolater. And is there 
not as good reason for maintaining that Christ approved idol- 
atry because he did not condemn it, as that he approved war 
because he did not condemn it ? Reasoning from analogy, 
we should conclude that idolatry was likely to have been 
noticed rather than war ; and it is therefore peculiarly and 
singularly unapt to bring forward the silence respecting war, 
as an evidence of its lawfulness. 

A similar argument is advanced from the case of Cornelius, 
to whom Peter was sent from Joppa, of which it is said, that 
although the gospel was imparted to Cornelius by the especial 
direction of heaven, yet we do not find that he therefore quit- 
ted his profession, or that it was considered inconsistent with 
his new character. The objection applies to this argument 
as to the last — that it is built upon silence, that it is simply 
negative. We do not find that he quitted the service : I might 

* Matt. viii. 10. 

t " Christianity, soliciting admission into all nations of the world, ab- 
stained, as behoved it, from intermeddling with the civil institutions of 
any. But does it follow, from the silence of Scripture concerning them, 
that all the civil institutions which then prevailed were right, or that the 
bad should not be exchanged for better ?" — Paley. 



CHAP. XIX.] 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



543 



answer, neither do we find that he continued in it. We only , 
know nothing of the matter ; and the evidence is therefore 
so much less than proof, as silence is less than approbation. 
Yet that the account is silent respecting any disapprobation 
of war, might have been a reasonable ground of argument 
under different circumstances. It might have been a reason- 
able ground of argument, if the primary object of Christianity 
had been the reformation of political institutions, or, perhaps, 
even if her primary object had been the regulation of the ex- 
ternal conduct ; but her primary object was neither of these. 
She directed herself to the reformation of the heart, knowing 
that all other reformation would follow. She embraced, in- 
deed, both morality and policy, and has reformed, or will re- 
form, both — not so much immediately as consequently — not 
so much by filtering the current, as by purifying the spring. 
The silence of Peter, therefore, in the case of Cornelius, will 
serve the cause of war but little : that little is diminished 
when urged against the positive evidence of commands and 
prohibitions, and it is reduced to nothingness when it is op- 
posed to the universal tendency and object of the revelation. 

It has sometimes been urged that Christ paid taxes to the 
Roman government at a time when it was engaged in war, 
and when, therefore, the money that he paid would be em- 
ployed in its prosecution. This we shall readily grant ; but 
it appears to be forgotten by our opponents, that if this proves 
war to be lawful, they are proving too much. These taxes 
were thrown into the exchequer of the state, and a part of 
the money was applied to purposes of a most iniquitous and 
shocking nature — sometimes, probably, to the gratification of 
the emperor's personal vices, and to his gladiatorial exhibi- 
tions, &c, and certainly to the support of a miserable idol- 
atry. If, therefore, the payment of taxes to such a govern- 
ment proves an approbation of war, it proves an approbation 
of many other enormities. Moreover, the argument goes too 
far in relation even to war; for it must necessarily make 
Christ approve of all the Roman wars, without distinction 
of their justice or injustice — of the most ambitious, the most 
atrocious, and the most aggressive — and these, even our objec- 
tors will not defend. The payment of tribute by our Lord, 
was accordant with his usual system of avoiding to interfere 
in the civil or political institutions of the world. 

" He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy 
one."* This is another passage that is brought against us. 

* Luke xxii. 36. Upon the interpretation of this passage of Scripture, 
I would subjoin the sentiments of two or three authors. Bishop Pearce 



544 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



[essay Hi. 



" For what purpose," it is asked, " were they to buy swords, 
if swords might not be used ?" It may be doubted whether, 
with some of those who advance this objection, it is not an 
objection of words rather than of opinion. It may be doubted 
whether they themselves think there is any weight in it. To 
those, however, who may be influenced by it, I would observe 
that, as it appears to me, a sufficient answer to the objection 
may be found in. the immediate context : " Lord, behold here 
are two swords," said they, and he immediately answered, " It 
is enough." How could two be enough when eleven were to 
be supplied with them ? That swords in the sense, and for 
the purpose, of military weapons, were even intended in this 
passage, there appears much reason for doubting. This rea- 
son will be discovered by examining and connecting such 
expressions as these : " The Son of Man is not come to de- 
stroy men's lives, but to save them," said our Lord. Yet, on 
another occasion, he says, " I came not to send peace on 
earth, but a sword." How are we to explain the meaning of 
the latter declaration ? Obviously, by understanding " sword 59 
to mean something far other than steel. There appears little 
reason for supposing that physical weapons were intended in 
the instruction of Christ. I believe they were not intended, 
partly because no one can imagine his apostles were in the 
habit of using such arms, partly because they declared that 
the weapons of their warfare were not carnal, and partly be- 
cause the word " sword" is often used to imply " dissension/" 
or the religious warfare of the Christian. Such an use of 
language is found in the last quotation ; and it is found also 
in such expressions as these : shield of faith," — " helmet of 
salvation," — " sword of the spirit," — " I have fought the good 
fight of faith." 

But it will be said that the apostles did provide themselves 
with swords, for that on the same evening they asked, " Shall 
we smite with the sword?" This is true, and it may proba- 
bly be true also, that some of them provided themselves with 
swords in consequence of the injunction of their Master. But 

says, " It is plain that Jesus never intended to make any resistance, or 
suffer a sword to be used on this occcasion." And Campbell says, " We 
are sure that he did not intend to be understood literally, but as speaking 1 
of the weapons of their spiritual warfare." And Beza : " This whole 
speech is allegorical. My fellow soldiers, you have hitherto lived in 
peace, but now a dreadful war is at hand ; so that omitting all other 
things, you must think only of arms. But when he prayed in the gar- 
den, and reproved Peter for smiting with the sword, he himself showed 
what these arms were." — See Peace and War s an Essay. Hatchard, 
1824. 



CHAP. XIX.] 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



545 



what then ? It appears to me that the apostles acted on this 
occasion upon the principles on which they had wished to act 
on another, when they asked, " Wilt thou that we command 
fire to come down from heaven, and consume them ?" And 
that their Master's principles of action were also the same in 
both — " Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of ; for 
the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to 
save them." This is the language of Christianity ; and I 
would seriously invite him who now justifies " destroying 
men's lives," to consider what manner of spirit he is of. 

I think then, that no argument arising from the instruction 
to buy swords can be maintained. This, at least, we know, 
that when the apostles were completely commissioned, they 
neither used nor possessed them. An extraordinary imagina- 
tion he must have, who conceives of an apostle, preaching 
peace and reconciliation, crying "forgive injuries," — "love 
your enemies," — " render not evil for evil ;" and at the con- 
clusion of the discourse, if he chanced to meet violence or 
insult, promptly drawing his sword and maiming or murdering 
the offender. We insist upon this consideration. If swords 
were to be worn, swords were to be used ; and there is no 
rational way in which they could have been used, but some 
such as that which we have been supposing. If, therefore, 
the words, " He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment 
and buy one," do not mean to authorize such an use of the 
sword, they do not mean to authorize its use at all : and those 
who adduce the passage, must allow its application in such 
a sense, or they must exclude it from any application to their 
purpose. 

It has been said, again that when soldiers came to John 
the Baptist to enquire of him what they should do, he did 
not direct them to leave the service, but to be content with 
their wages. This, also, is at best but a negative evidence. 
It does not prove that the military profession was wrong, and 
it certainly does not prove that it was right. But in truth, if 
it asserted the latter, Christians have, as I conceive, nothing 
to do with it : for I think that we need not enquire what John 
allowed, or what he forbade. He, confessedly, belonged to 
that system which required " an eye for an eye, and a tooth 
for a tooth and the observations which we shall by and by 
make on the authority of the law of Moses, apply, therefore, 
to that of John the Baptist. Although it could be proved 
(which it cannot be) jhat he allowed wars, he acted not in- 
consistently with his own dispensation ; and with that dis- 
pensation we have no business. Yet, if any one still insists 

46* 



/ 



546 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



[ESSAY III. 



upon the authority of John, I would refer him for an answer 
to Jesus Christ himself. What authority He attached to John 
on questions relating to His own dispensation, may be learnt 
from this — " The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater 
than he." 

It is perhaps no trifling indication of the difficulty which 
writers have found in discovering in the Christian Scriptures 
arguments in support of war, that they have had recourse to 
such equivocal and far-fetched arguments. Grotius adduces 
a passage which he says is " a leading point of evidence, to 
show that the right of war is not taken away by the law 
of the gospel." And what is this leading evidence ? That 
Paul, in writing to Timothy, exhorts that prayer should 
be made " for kings !" * — Another evidence which this great 
man adduces is, that Paul suffered himself to be protected on 
his journey by a guard of soldiers, without hinting any disap- 
probation of repelling force by force. But how does Grotius 
know that Paul did not hint this ? And who can imagine that 
to suffer himself to be guarded by a Military escort, in 
the appointment of which he had no control, was to approve 
war ? 

But perhaps the real absence of sound Christian arguments 
in favour of war, is in no circumstance so remarkably intima- 
ted as in the citations of Milton in his Christian Doctrine. 
" With regard to the duties of war," he quotes or refers 
to thirty-nine passages of Scripture — thirty-eight of which are 
from the Hebrew Scriptures : and what is the individual one 
from the Christian 1 — " What king going to war with another 
king !" &c. f 

Such are the arguments which are adduced from the Chris- 
tian Scriptures by the advocates of war. In these five passa- 
ges, the principal of the New Testament evidences in its fa- 
vour, unquestionably consist : they are the passages which 
men of acute minds, studiously seeking for evidence, have se- 
lected. And what are they ? Their evidence is in the ma- 
jority of instances negative at best. A "not" intervenes. 
The centurion was not found fault with : Cornelius was not 
told to leave the profession : John did not tell the soldiers to 
abandon the army : Paul did not refuse a military guard. I 
cannot forbear to solicit the reader to compare these ob- 
jections with the pacific evidence of the gospel which has 
been laid before him ; I would rather say, to compare it with 
the gospel itself ; for the sum, the tenctency, of the whole reve- 
lation is in our favour. 



See Rights of War and Peace. 



CHAP. XIX.] 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



547 



In an enquiry whether Christianity allows of war, there is 
a subject that always appears to me to be of peculiar im- 
portance — the prophecies of the Old Testament respecting 
the arrival of a period of universal peace. The belief is per- 
haps general amongst Christians, that a time will come when 
vice shall be eradicated from the world, when the violent 
passions of mankind shall be repressed, and when the pure 
benignity of Christianity shall be universally diffused. That 
such a period will come we indeed know assuredly, for God 
has promised it. 

Of the many prophecies of the Old Testament respecting 
this period, we refer only to a few from the writings of Isaiah. 
In his predictions respecting the " last times," by Avhich it is 
not disputed that he referred to the prevalence of the Chris- 
tian religion, the prophet says — " They shall beat their 
swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks : 
nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall 
they learn war any more." * Again, referring to the same pe- 
riod, he says — "They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy 
mountain : for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the 
Lord, as the waters cover the sea." f And again, respecting 
the same era — " Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, 
wasting nor destruction within thy borders." f 

Two things are to be observed in relation to these prophe- 
cies ; 1st, that it is the will of God that war should eventu- 
ally be abolished. This consideration is of importance ; for 
if war be not accordant with His will, war cannot be accord- 
ant with Christianity, which is the revelation of His will. 
Our business, however, is principally with the second consid- 
eration — that Christianity will be the means of introducing 
this period of Peace. From those who say that our religion 
sanctions war, an answer must be expected to questions such 
as these : — By what instrumentality and by the diffusion of 
what principles, will the prophecies of Isaiah be fulfilled ? 
Are we to expect some new system of religion, by which the 
imperfections of Christianity shall be removed and its de- 
ficiencies supplied ? Are we to believe that God sent his only 
Son into the world to institute a religion such as this, a religion 
that, in a few centuries, would require to be altered and amend- 
ed ? If Christianity allows of war, they must tell us what it is 
that is to extirpate war. If she allows " violence, and wasting, 
and destruction," they must tell us what are the principles that 
are to produce gentleness, and benevolence, and forbearance. 
— I know not what answer such enquiries will receive from 
* Isa. ii. 4. t Id. xi. 9. f Id. lx. 18. 



548 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



[ESSAY III. 



the advocate of war, but I know that Isaiah says the change 
will be effected by Christianity : and if any one still chooses 
to expect another and a purer system, an apostle may, 
perhaps, repress his hopes ; — " Though we or an angel from 
heaven," says Paul, " preach any other gospel unto you, than 
that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed."* 

Whatever the principles of Christianity will require here- 
after, they require now. Christianity, with its present princi- 
ples and obligations, is to produce universal peace. It be- 
comes, therefore, an absurdity, a simple contradiction, to 
maintain that the principles of Christianity allow of war, when 
they, and they only, are to eradicate it. If we have no other 
guarantee of Peace than the existence of our religion, and no 
other hope of Peace than in its diffusion, how can that reli- 
gion sanction war ? 

The case is clear. A more perfect obedience to that same 
gospel, which, we are told, sanctions slaughter, will be 
the means, and the only means, of exterminating slaughter 
from the world. It is not from an alteration of Christianity, 
but from an assimilation of Christians to its nature that 
we are to hope. It is because we violate the principles 
of our religion, because we are not what they require us to be, 
that wars are continued. If we will not be peaceable, let us 
then, at least, be honest, and acknowledge that we continue 
to slaughter one another, not because Christianity permits it, 
but because we reject her laws. 

The opinions of the earliest professors of Christianity upon 
the lawfulness of war are of importance, because they who 
lived nearest to the time of its Founder were the most likely 
to be informed of his intentions and his will, and to practise 
them without those adulterations which we know have been 
introduced by the lapse of ages. 

During a considerable period after the death of Christ, it is 
certain, then, that his followers believed he had forbidden war, 
and that, in consequence of this belief, many of them re- 
fused to engage in it whatever were the consequence, whether 
reproach, or imprisonment, or death. These facts are indis- 
putable. " It is as easy," says a learned writer of the sev- 
enteenth century, " to obscure the sun at mid-day, as to deny 
that the primitive Christians renounced all revenge and war." 
Christ and his apostles delivered general precepts for the regu- 
lation of our conduct. It was necessary for their successors 
to apply them to their practice in life. And to what did they 
apply the pacific precepts which had been delivered 1 They 
* Gal. i. 8. 



CHAP. Xix!] 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



549 



applied them to war ; they were assured that the precepts ab- 
solutely forbade it. This belief they derived from those very 
precepts on which we have insisted ; they referred expressly, 
to the same passages in the New Testament, and from the au- 
thority and obligation of those passages, they refuse to bear arms. 
A few' examples from their history will show with what un- 
doubting confidence they believed in the unlawfulness of war, 
and how much they were willing to suffer in the cause of Peace. 

Maximilian, as it is related in the Acts of Ruinart, was 
brought before the tribunal to be enrolled as a soldier. On the 
proconsol's asking his name, Maximilian replied, "I am a 
Christian, and cannot fight." It was, however, ordered that 
he should be enrolled, but he refused to serve, still alleging 
that he was a Christian. He was immediately told that 
there was no alternative between bearing arms and being put 
to death. But his fidelity was not to be shaken : — " I cannot 
fight," said he, " if I die." He continued steadfast to his 
principles, and was consigned to the executioner. 

The primitive Christians not only refused to be enlisted in 
the army, but when they embraced Christianity, whilst al- 
ready enlisted, they abandoned the profession at whatever 
cost. Marcellus was a centurion in the legion called Tra- 
jana. Whilst holding this commission, he became a Chris- 
tian ; and believing in common with his fellow-Christians, 
that war was no longer permitted to him, he threw down his 
belt at the head of the legion, declaring, that he had become 
a Christian, and that he would serve no longer. He was 
committed to prison ; but he was still faithful to Christianity. 
" It is not lawful," said he, " for a Christian to bear arms for 
any earthly consideration ;" and he was, in consequence, put 
to death. Almost immediately afterwards, Cassian, who was 
notary to the same legion, gave up his office. He steadfastly 
maintained the sentiments of Marcellus ; and, like him was 
consigned to the executioner. Martin, of whom so much 
is said by Sulpicius Severus, was bred to the profession 
of arms, which, on his acceptance of Christianity, he aban- 
doned. To Julian the Apostate, the only reason that we find 
he gave for his conduct was this : — " I am a Christian, and 
therefore I cannot fight." 

These were not the sentiments, and this was not the 
conduct, of insulated individuals who might be actuated by 
individual opinion, or by their private interpretations of the 
duties of Christianity. Their principles were the principles 
of the body. They were recognized and defended by the 
Christian writers, their contemporaries. Justin Martyr and 



550 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR, 



{ESSAY III. 



Tatian talk of soldiers and Christians as distinct characters ; 
and Tatian says that the Christians declined even military 
commands. Clemens of Alexandria calls his Christian con- 
temporaries the " Followers of Peace," and expressly tells us 
" that the followers of peace used none of the implements of 
war." Lactantius, another early Christian, says expressly, 
"It can never be lawful for a righteous man to go to 
war." About the end of the second century, Celsus, one 
of the opponents of Christianity, charged the Christians with 
refusing to bear arms even in case of necessity. Origen, 
the defender of the Christians, does not think of denying the 
fact ; he admits the refusal, and justifies it, because war was 
unlawful. Even after Christianity had spread over almost 
the whole of the known world, Tertullian, in speaking of 
a part of the Roman armies, including more than one-third of 
the standing legions of Rome, distinctly informs us that " not 
a Christian could be found amongst them." 

All this is explicit. The evidence of the following facts is, 
however, yet more determinate and satisfactory. Some of 
the arguments which, at the present day, are brought against 
the advocates of peace, were then urged against these early 
Christians ; and these arguments they examined and repelled. 
This indicates investigation and enquiry, and manifests that 
their belief of the unlawfulness of war was not a vague opin- 
ion, hastily admitted and loosely floating amongst them, but. 
that it was the result of deliberate examination, and a conse- 
quent firm conviction that. Christ had forbidden it. The very 
same arguments which are brought in defence of war at the 
present day, were brought against the Christians sixteen 
hundred years ago ; and, sixteen hundred years ago, they 
were repelled by these faithful contenders for the purity 
of our religion. It is remarkable, too, that Tertullian appeals 
to the precepts from the Mount, in proof of those principles 
on which this chapter has been insisting : — that the disposi- 
tions which the precepts inculcate are not compatible with war, 
and that war, therefore, is irreconcilable with Christianity, 

If it be possible, a still stronger evidence of the primitive 
belief, is contained in the circumstance, that some of the 
Christian authors declared that the refusal of the Christians to 
bear arms, was a fulfilment of ancient prophecy. The pe- 
culiar strength of this evidence consists in this — that the fact 
of a refusal to bear arms is assumed as notorious and unques- 
tioned. Irenaeus, who lived about the year 180, affirms that 
the prophecy of Isaiah, which declared that men should turn 
their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning- 



CHAP. XIX.] LAWFULNESS OF "WAR. 



551 



hooks, had been fulfilled in his time ; "for the Christians," 
says he, " have changed their swords and their lances into in- 
struments of peace, and they know not how to fight." — Jus- 
tin Martyn, his contemporary, writes — " That the prophecy is 
fulfilled you have good reason to believe, for we, who in times 
past killed one another, do not now fight with our enemies." 
Tertullian, who lived later, says, " You must confess that the 
prophecy has been accomplished, as far as the practice of 
every individual is concerned, to whom it is applicable." 

It has been sometimes said, that the motive which influenced 
the early Christians to refuse to engage in war, consisted in 
the idolatry which was connected with the Roman armies. — 
One motive this idolatry unquestionably afforded ; but it is ob- 
vious, from the quotations which we have given, that their 
belief of the unlawfulness of fighting, independent of any 
question of idolatry, was an insuperable objection to engaging 
in war. Their words are explicit : " I cannot fight, if I 
die." — "I am a Christian, and therefore I cannot fight"; — ■ 
" Christ," says Tertullian, " by disarming Peter, disarmed 
every soldier ;" and Peter was not about to fight in the armies 
of idolatry. So entire was their conviction of the incompati- 
bility of war with our religion, that they would not even be 
present at the gladiatorial fights, "lest," says Theophilus, "we 
should become partakers of the murders committed there." 
Can any one believe that they, who would not even toitness a 
battle between two men, would themselves light in a battle 
between armies ? And the destruction of a gladiator, it should 
be remembered, was authorized by the state, as much as the 
destruction of enemies in war. 

It is therefore indisputable, that the Christians who lived 
nearest to the time of our Saviour, believed, with undoubting 
confidence, that he had unequivocally forbidden war ; — that 
they openly avowed this belief; and that, in support of it, 
they were willing to sacrifice, and did sacrifice, their fortunes 
and their lives. 

Christians, however, afterwards became soldiers : and 
when ? — When their general fidelity to Christianity became 
relaxed ; — when, in other respects, they violated its principles ; 
— when they had begun " to dissemble" and " to falsify their 
word," and " to cheat ;" — when " Christian casuists" had per- 
suaded them that they might " sit at meat in the idoTs temple ;" 
— when Christians accepted even the priesthoods of idolatry. 
In a word, they became soldiers when they had ceased to be 
Christians. 

The departure from the original faithfulness, was, however, 



552 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



[ESSAY III. 



not suddenly general. Like every other corruption, war ob- 
tained by degrees. During the first two hundred years, not 
a Christian soldier is upon record. In the third century, when 
Christianity became partially corrupted, Christian soldiers 
were common. The number increased with the increase of 
the general profligacy ; until at last, in the fourth century, 
Christians became soldiers without hesitation, and perhaps 
without remorse. Here and there, however, an ancient father 
still lifted up his voice?,for Peace ; but these, one after another, 
dropping from the world, the tenet that War is unlawful, 
ceased at length to be a tenet of the church. 

Let it always be borne in mind, by those who are advoca- 
ting war, that they are contending for a corruption which their 
forefathers abhorred ; and that they are making Jesus Christ 
the sanctioner of crimes, which his purest followers offered 
up their lives because they would not commit. 

An argument has sometimes been advanced in favour of 
war, from the divine communications to the Jews under the 
administration of Moses. It has been said, that as wars were 
allowed and enjoined to that people, they cannot be inconsis- 
tent with the will of God. 

The reader, who has perused the First Essay of this work, 
will be aware that to the present argument our answer is 
short : — If Christianity prohibits war, there is, to Christians, 
an end of the controversy. War cannot then be justified 
by the referring to any antecedent dispensation. One brief 
observation may, however, be offered, that those who refer, in 
justification of our present practice, to the authority by which 
the Jews prosecuted their wars, must be expected to produce 
the same authority for our own. Wars were commanded to 
the Jews, but are they commanded to us ? War, in the ab- 
stract, was never commanded : and surely those specific wars 
which were enjoined upon the Jews for an express purpose, 
are neither authority nor example for us, who have received 
no such injunction, and can plead no such purpose. 

It will, perhaps, be said, that the commands to prosecute 
wars, even to extermination, are so positive, and so often re- 
peated, that it is not probable, if they w%re inconsistent with 
the will of heaven, that they would have been thus peremp- 
torily enjoined. We answer, that they were not inconsistent 
with the will of heaven then. But even then, the prophets 
foresaw that they were not accordant with the universal will 
of God, since they predicted, that when that Will should be 
fulfilled, war should be eradicated from the world. And by 
what dispensation was this Will to be fulfilled ? By that of 



CHAP, XIX.] 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



553 



the " Rod out of the stem of Jesse." It is worthy of recollec- 
tion, too, that David was forbidden to build the temple because 
he had shed blood. " As for me it was in my mind to build 
an house unto the name of the Lord my God : but the word 
of the Lord came to me, saying, Thou hast shed blood abund- 
antly, and hast made great wars ; thou shalt not build an house 
unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the 
earth in my sight."* So little accordancy did war possess 
with the purer offices even of the Jewish Dispensation. 

Perhaps the argument to which the greatest importance is 
attached by the advocates of war, and by which thinking men 
are chiefly induced to acquiesce in its lawfulness is this — 
That a distinction is to be made between rules which apply to 
us as individuals, and rules which apply to us as subjects of the 
state ; and that the pacific injunctions of Christ from the Mount, 
and all the other kindred commands and prohibitions of the Chris- 
tian Scriptures, have no reference to our conduct as members 
of the political body. 

If there be soundness in the doctrines which have been de- 
livered at the commencement of the Essay upon the " Ele- 
ments of Political Rectitude," this argument possesses no 
force or application. 

When persons make such broad distinctions between the 
obligations of Christianity on private and on public affairs, 
the proof of the rectitude of the distinction must be expected 
of those who make it. General rules are laid down by Chris- 
tianity, of which, in some cases, the advocate of war denies 
the applicability. He, therefore, is to produce the reason and 
the authority for the exception. And that authority must be 
a competent authority — the authority mediately or immediately 
of God. It is to no purpose for such a person to tell us of 
the magnitude of political affairs — of the greatness of the in- 
terests which they involve — of " necessity," or of expediency. 
All these are very proper considerations in subordination to 
the Moral Law ; — otherwise they are wholly nugatory and 
irrelevant. Let the reader observe the manner in which the 
argument is supported. — If an individual suffers aggression, 
there is a power to which he can apply that is above himself 
and above the aggressor ; a power by which the bad passions 
of those around him are restrained, or by which their aggres- 
sions are punished. But amongst nations there is no acknow- 
ledged superior or common arbitrator. Even if there were, 
there is no way in which its decisions could be enforced, but 
by the sword. War, therefore, is the only means which one 
* 1 Chron. xxii. 7, 8. 
47 



554 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



[ESSAY HI. 



nation possesses of protecting itself from the aggression of 
another. The reader will observe the fundamental fallacy 
upon which the argument proceeds. — It assumes, that the rea- 
son why an individual is not permitted to use violence is, that 
the laws will use it for him. Here is the error ; for the foun- 
dation of the duty of forbearance in private life, is not that the 
laws will punish aggression, but that Christianity requires for- 
bearance. 

Undoubtedly, if the existence of a common arbitrator were 
the foundation of the duty, the duty would not be binding upon 
nations. But that which we require to be proved is this — 
that Christianity exonerates nations from those duties which 
she has imposed upon individuals. This, the present argu- 
ment does not prove : and, in truth, with a singular unhappi- 
ness in its application, it assumes, in effect, that she has im- 
posed these duties upon neither the one nor the other. 

If it be said, that Christianity allows to individuals some 
degree and kind of resistance, and that some resistance is 
therefore lawful to states, we do not deny it. But if it be said, 
that the degree of lawful resistance extends to the slaughter 
of our fellow Christians — that it extends to war — we do deny 
it : we say that the rules of Christianity cannot, by any possible 
latitude of interpretation, be made to extend to it. The duty 
of forbearance, then, is antecedent to all considerations respect- 
ing the condition of man ; and whether he be under the pro- 
tection of laws or not, the duty of forbearance is imposed. 

The only truth which appears to be elicited by the present 
argument is, that the difficulty of obeying the forbearing rules 
of Christianity is greater in the case of nations than in the 
case of individuals : The obligation to obey them is the same 
in both. Nor let any one urge the difficulty of obedience in 
opposition to the duty ; for he who does this, has yet to learn 
one of the most awful rules of his religion — a rule that was 
enforced by the precepts, and more especially by the final ex- 
ample, of Christ, of apostles and of martyrs — the rule which 
requires that we should be " obedient even unto death." 

Let it not, however, be supposed that we believe the diffi- 
culty of forbearance would be great in practice as it is great 
in theory. Our interests are commonly promoted by the ful- 
filment of our duties ; and we hope hereafter to show, that the 
fulfilment of the duty of forbearance forms no exception to the 
applicability of the rule. 

The intelligent reader will have perceived that the " War" 
of which we speak is all war, without reference to its objects, 
whether offensive or defensive. In truth, respecting any other 



CHAP. XIX.] 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



555 



than defensive war, it is scarcely worth while to entertain a 
question, since no one with whom we are concerned to reason 
will advocate its opposite. Some persons indeed talk with 
much complacency of their reprobation of offensive war. Yet 
to reprobate no more than this, is only to condemn that which 
wickedness itself is not wont to justify. Even those w T ho 
practise offensive war, affect to veil its nature by calling it by 
another name. 

In conformity with this, we find that it is to defence that the 
peaceable precepts of Christianity are directed. Offence ap- 
pears not to have even suggested itself. It is, u Resist not 
evil it is, " Overcome evil with good :" it is, " Do good to 
them that hate you :" it is, " Love your enemies it is, " Ren- 
der not evil for evil it is, " Unto him that smiteth thee on the 
one cheek." All this supposes previous offence, or injury, or 
violence ; and it is then that forbearance is enjoined. 

It is common with those who justify defensive war, to iden- 
tify the question with that of individual self-defence ; and al- 
though the questions are in practice sufficiently dissimilar, it 
has been seen that we object not to their being regarded as 
identical. The Rights of Self-Defence have already been 
discussed, and the conclusions to which the Moral Law ap- 
pears to lead, afford no support to the advocate of war. 

We say the questions are practically dissimilar ; so that 
if we had. a right to lull a man in self-defence, very few wars 
would be shown to be lawful. Of the wars which are prose- 
cuted, some are simply wars of aggression ; some are for the 
maintenance of a balance of power ; some are in assertion of 
technical rights ; and some, undoubtedly, to repel invasion. 
The last are perhaps the fewest ; and of these only it can be 
said that they bear any analogy whatever to the case which 
is supposed ; and even in these, the analogy is seldom com- 
plete. It has rarely indeed happened that wars have been 
undertaken simply for the preservation of life, and that no other 
alternative has remained to a people than to kill, or to be killed. 
And let it be remembered, that unless this alternative alone re- 
mains, the case of individual self-defence is irrelevant : it ap- 
plies not, practically, to the subject. 

But indeed you cannot in practice make distinctions, even 
moderately accurate, between defensive war and war for other 
purposes. 

Supposing, the Christian Scriptures had said, An army may 
fght in its own defence, but not for any other purpose. — Who- 
ever will attempt to apply this rule in practice, will find that 
he has a very wide range of justifiable warfare : a range that 



556 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



[essay in. 



will embrace many more wars, than moralists, Iaxer than we 
shall suppose him to be, are willing to defend. If an army 
may fight in defence of their own lives, they may, and they 
must fight in defence of the lives of others : if they may fight 
in the defence of the lives of others, they will fight in defence 
of their property : if in defence of property, they will fight in 
defence of political rights : if in defence of rights, they will fight 
in promotion of interests : if in promotion of interests, they 
will fight in promotion of their glory and their crimes. Now 
let any man of honesty look over the gradations by which we 
arrive at this climax, and I believe he will find that, in practice, 
no curb can be placed upon the conduct of an army until they 
reach that climax. There is, indeed, a wide distance between 
fighting in defence of life, and fighting in furtherance of our 
crimes ; but the steps which lead from one to the other will 
follow in inevitable succession. I know that the letter of 
our rule excludes it, but I know that the rule will be a letter 
only. It is very easy for us to sit in our studies, and to point 
the commas, and semicolons, and periods of the soldier T s ca- 
reer : it is very easy for us to say, he shall stop at defence 
of life, or at protection of property, or at the support of rights ; 
but armies will never listen to us : we shall be only the Xerxes 
of morality, throwing out idle chains into the tempestuous 
ocean of slaughter. 

What is the testimony of experience ? When nations are 
mutually exasperated, and armies are levied, and battles are 
fought, does not every one know that with whatever motives 
of defence one party may have begun the contest, both, in 
turn, become aggressors ? In the fury of slaughter, soldiers 
do not attend, they cannot attend, to questions of aggression. 
Their business is destruction, and their business they will 
perform. If the army of defence obtains success, it soon be- 
comes an army of aggression. Having repelled the invader, 
it begins to punish him. If a war has once begun, it is in vain 
to think of distinctions of aggression and defence. Moralists 
may talk of distinctions, but soldiers will make none ; and none 
can be made ; it is without the limits of possibility. 

Indeed, some of the definitions of defensive or of just war 
which are proposed by moralists, indicate how impossible it 
is to confine warfare within any assignable limits. " The 
objects just war," says Paley, " are precaution, defence, or 
reparation." — " Every just war supposes an injury perpetrated, 
attempted, or feared." 

I shall acknowledge, that if these be justifying motives to 



CHAP. XIX.] 



LAWFULNESS OF WAR. 



557 



war, I see very little purpose in talking of morality upon the 
subject. 

It is in vain to expatiate on moral obligations, if we are at 
liberty to declare war whenever an " injury is feared :" — an 
injury, without limit to its insignificance ! a fear, without stipu- 
lation . for its reasonableness ! The judges, also, of the rea- 
sonableness of fear, are to be they who are under its influence ; 
and who so likely to judge amiss as those who are afraid 1 
Sounder philosophy than this has told us, that " he who has 
to reason upon his duty when the temptation to transgress it 
is before him, is almost sure to reason himself into an error." 

Violence, and Rapine, and Ambition, are not to be restrained 
by morality like this. It may serve for the speculations of a 
study ; but we will venture to affirm that mankind will never 
be controlled by it. Moral rules are useless, if,- from their 
own nature they cannot be, or will not be applied. Who be- 
lieves that if kings and conquerors may fight when they have 
fears, they will not fight when they have them not 1 The 
morality allows too much latitude to the passions, to retain 
any practical restraint upon them. And a morality that will 
not be practised, I had almost said, that cannot be practised, 
is an useless morality. It is a theory of morals. We want 
clearer and more exclusive rules ; we want more obvious and 
immediate sanctions. It were in vain for a philosopher to say 
to a general who was burning for glory, " You are at liberty 
to engage in the war provided you have suffered, or fear you 
will suffer an injury — otherwise Christianity prohibits it." He 
will tell him of twenty injuries that have been suffered, of a 
hundred tha^t have been attempted, and of a thousand that he 
fears. And what answer can the philosopher make to him 1 

If these are the proper standards of just war, there will be 
little difficulty in proving any war to be just, except, indeed, 
that of simple aggression ; and by the rules of this morality, 
the aggressor is difficult of discovery, for he whom we choose 
to " fear," may say that he had previous " fear " of us, and 
that his " fear," prompted the hostile symptoms which made 
us " fear " again. The truth is, that to attempt to make any 
distinctions upon the subject is vain. War must be wholly 
forbidden, or allowed without restriction to defence ; for no 
definitions of lawful and unlawful war, will be, or can be, at- 
tended to. If the principles of Christianity, in any case, or 
for any purpose, allow armies to meet and to slaughter one 
another, her principles will never conduct us to the period 
which prophecy has assured us they shall produce. There 



558 PROBABLE PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF [ESSAY III. 

is no hope of an^eradication of war, but by an absolute and to- 
tal abandonment of it. 

OF THE PROBABLE PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF ADHE- 
RING TO THE MORAL LAW IN RESPECT TO WAR. 

We have seen that the duties of the religion which God 
has imparted to mankind require irresistance ; and surely it 
is reasonable to hope, even without a reference to experience, 
that he will make our irresistance subservient to our interests : 
that if, for the purpose of conforming to his will, we subject 
ourselves to difficulty or danger, he will protect us in our obe- 
dience, and direct it to our benefit : that if he requires us not 
to be concerned in war, he will preserve us in peace : that he 
will not desert those who have no other protection, and who 
have abandoned all other protection because they confide in 
His alone. 

This we may reverently hope ; yet it is never to be forgot- 
ten that our apparent interests in the present life are some- 
times, in the economy of God, made subordinate to our inter- 
ests in futurity. 

Yet, even in reference only to the present state of existence, 
I believe that we shall find that the testimony of experience is, 
that forbearance is most conducive to our interests. There is 
practical truth in the position, that " When a man's ways please 
the Lord," he " maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him." 

The reader of American history will recollect, that in the 
beginning of the last century a desultory and most dreadful 
warfare was carried on by the natives against the European 
settlers ; a warfare that was provoked— -as such warfare has 
almost always originally been — by the injuries and violence 
of the Christians. The mode of destruction was secret and 
sudden. The barbarians sometimes lay in wait for those who 
might come within their reach, on the highway or in the 
fields, and shot them without warning : and sometimes they 
attacked the Europeans in their houses, " scalping some, and 
knocking out the brains of others." From this horrible war- 
fare the inhabitants sought safety by abandoning their homes, 
and retiring to fortified places, or to the neighbourhood of 
garrisons ; and those whom necessity still compelled to pass 
beyond the limits of such protection, provided themselves 
with arms for their defence. But amidst this dreadful deso- 
lation and universal terror, the Society of Friends, who were 
a considerable portion of the whole population, were steadfast 



CHAP. XIX.] ADHERING TO THE MORAL LAW, ETC. 559 

to their principles. They would neither retire to garrisons, 
nor provide themselves with arms. They remained openly 
in the country, whilst the rest were flying to the forts. They 
still pursued their occupations in the fields or at their homes, 
without a weapon either for annoyance or defence. And 
what was their fate ? They lived in security and quiet. The 
habitation which, to his armed neighbour, was the scene of 
murder and of the scalping-knife, was to the unarmed Quaker 
a place of safety and of peace. 

Three of the Society were however killed. And who were 
they 1 They were three who abandoned their principles. 
Two of these victims were men who, in the simple language 
of the narrator, " used to go to their labour without any wea- 
pons, and trusted to the Almighty, and depended on his pro- 
vidence to protect them, (it being their principle not to use 
weapons of war to offend others, or to defend themselves ;) 
but a spirit of distrust taking place in their minds, they took 
weapons of war to defend themselves, and the Indians who 
had seen them several times without them and let them alone, 
saying they were peacable men and hurt nobody, therefore 
they would not hurt them — now seeing them have guns, and 
supposing they designed to kill the Indians, they therefore 
shot the men dead." The third whose life was sacrificed was 
a woman, " who had remained in her habitation," not think- 
ing herself warranted in going " to a fortified place for preser- 
vation, neither she, her son, nor daughter, nor to take thither 
the little ones ; but the poor woman after some time began to 
let in a slavish fear, and advised her children to go with her 
to a fort not far from their dwelling." She went; — and 
shortly afterwards " the bloody, cruel Indians, lay by the way, 
and killed her."* 

The fate of the Quakers during the Rebellion in Ireland 
was nearly similar. It is well known that the Rebellion was 
a time not only of open war but of cold-blooded murder ; of 
the utmost fury of bigotry, and the utmost exasperation of re- 
venge. Yet the Quakers were preserved even to a proverb ; 
and when strangers passed through streets of ruin and ob- 
served a house standing uninjured and alone, they would 
sometimes point, and say, — " That, doubtless, is the house of 
a Quaker."! So complete indeed was the preservation which 
these people experienced, that in an official document of the 
Society they say, — " no member of our society fell a sacrifice 

* See Select anecdotes, &c. by John Barclay, pages 71, 79. 
t The Moravians, whose principles upon the subject of war are similar 
to those of the Quakers, experienced also similar preservation. 



560 



PROBABLE PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF [ESSAY III. 



but one young man ;"— and that young man had assumed regi- 
mentals and arms."* 

It were to no purpose to say, in opposition to the evidence 
of these facts, that they form an exception to a general rule. — 
The exception to the rule consists in the trial of the experiment 
of non-resistance, not in its success. Neither were it to any pur- 
pose to say, that the savages of America or the desperadoes of 
Ireland, spared the Quakers because they were previously 
known to be an unoffending people, or because the Quakers 
had previously gained the love of these by forbearance or good 
offices : — we concede all this ; it is the very argument which 
we maintain. We say, that an uniform undeviating regard 
to the peaceable obligations of Christianity, becomes the safe- 
guard of those who practise it. We venture to maintain, that 
no reason whatever can be assigned, why the fate of the 
Quakers would not be the fate of all who should adopt their 
conduct. No reason can be assigned why, if their number 
had been multiplied tenfold or a hundred-fold, they would not 
have been preserved. If there be such a reason, let us hear 
it. The American and Irish Quakers were, to the rest of the 
community, what one nation is to a continent. And we must 
require the advocate of war to produce (that which has never 
yet been produced) a reason for believing, that although indi- 
viduals exposed to destruction were preserved, a nation ex- 
posed to destruction would be destroyed. We do not how- 
ever say, that if a people, in the customary state of men's pas- 
sions, should be assailed by an invader, and should, on a sud- 
den, choose to declare that they would try whether Providence 
would protect them — of such a people, we do not say, that 
they would experience protection, and that none of them would 
be killed : but we say, that the evidence of experience is, that 
a people who habitually regard the obligations of Christianity 
in their conduct towards other men, and who steadfastly re- 
fuse, through whatever consequences, to engage in acts of 
hostility will experience protection in their peacefulness : — And 
it matters nothing to the argument, whether we refer that pro- 
tection to the immediate agency of Providence, or to the in- 
fluence of such conduct upon the minds of men.f 

* See Hancock's Principles of Peace Exemplified. 

t Raraond, in his " Travels in the Pyrenees," fell in from time to time 
with those desperate marauders who infest the boundaries of Spain and 
Italy — men who are familiar with danger and robbery and blood. What 
did experience teach him was the most efficient means of preserving him- 
self from injury ? To go "unarmed." He found that he had " little to 
apprehend from men whom we inspire with no distrust or envy, and every 
thing to expect in those from whom we claim only what is due from man 



CHAP, XIX.] ADHERING TO THE MORAL LAW, ETC. 



561 



Such has been the experience of the unoffending and un- 
resisting, in individual life. A National example of a refusal 
to bear arms, has only once been exhibited to the world : but 
that one example has proved, so far as its political circumstances 
enabled it to prove, all that humanity could desire and all that 
scepticism could demand, in favour of our argument. 

It has been the ordinary practice of those who have colon- 
ized distant countries, to force a footing, or to maintain it, with 
the sword. One of the first objects has been to build a fort 
and to provide a military. The adventurers became soldiers, 
and the colony was a garrison. Pennsylvania was however 
colonized by men who believed that war was absolutely in- 
compatible with Christianity, and who therefore resolved not 
to practise it. Having determined not to fight, they maintained 
no soldiers and possessed no arms. They planted them- 
selves in a country that was surrounded by savages, and by 
savages who knew they were unarmed. If easiness of con- 
quest, or incapability of defence, could subject them to out- 
rage, the Pennsylvanians might have been the very sport of 
violence. Plunderers might have robbed them without retal- 
iation, and armies might have slaughtered them without re- 
sistance. If they did not give a temptation to outrage, no 
temptation could be given. But these were the people who 
possessed their country in security, whilst those around them 
were trembling for their existence. This was a land of peace, 
whilst every other was a land of war. The conclusion is in- 
evitable, although it is extraordinary : — they were in no need 
of arms, because they would not use them. 

These Indians were sufficiently ready to commit outrages 
upon other States, and often visited them with desolation and 
slaughter : with that sort of desolation, and that sort of 
slaughter, which might be expected from men whom civilization 
had not reclaimed from cruelty, and whom religion had not 
awed into forbearance, if But whatever the quarrels of the 
Pennsylvanian Indians were with others, they uniformly re- 
spected and held as it were sacred, the territories of William 

to man. The laws of nature still exist for those who have long shaken 
off' the law of civil government." — "The assassin has been my guide in the 
defiles of the boundaries of Italy: the smuggler of the Pyrenees has re- 
ceived me with a welcome in his secret paths. Armed, I should have 
been the enemy of both : unarmed, they have alike respected me. In 
such expectation I have long since laid aside all menacing apparatus 
whatever. Arms irritate the wicked and intimidate the simple ; the man 
of peace amongst mankind has a much more sacred defence — his char- 
acter." ^ 



562 



PROBABLE PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF [ESSAY III. 



Perm.* The Peimsylvanians never lost man, woman or child 
by them ; which neither the colony of Maryland, nor that of 
Virginia could say, no more than the great colony of New- 
England."f 

The security and quiet of Pennsylvania was not a transient 
freedom from war, such as might accidentally happen to any 
nation. She continued to enjoy it " for more than seventy 
years," J and " subsisted in the midst of six Indian nations, 
without so much as a militia for her defence. "§ " The 
Pennsylvanians became armed, though without arms ; they 
became^ strong, though without strength ; they became safe, 
without the ordinary means of safety. The constable's staff 
was the only instrument of authority amongst them for the 
greater part of a century, and never during the administration 
of Penn, or that of his proper successors, was there a quarrel 
or a war. "|| 

I cannot wonder that these people were not molested — ex- 
traordinary and unexampled as their security was. There is 
something so noble in this perfect confidence in the Supreme 
Protector, in this utter exclusion of " slavish fear," in this 
voluntary relinquishment of the means of injury or of defence, 
that I do not wonder that even ferocity could be disarmed by 
such virtue. A people generously living without arms amidst 
nations of warriors ! Who would attack a people such as 
this ? There are few men so abandoned as not to respect 
such confidence. It were a peculiar and an unusual inten- 
sity of wickedness that would not even revere it. 

And when was the security of Pennsylvania molested, and 
its peace destroyed? — When the men who had directed its coun- 
sels, and who would not engage in war, were outvoted in its 
legislature : when they who supposed that there was a greater 
security in the sword than in Christianity, became the predomi- 
nating body. From that hour the Pennsylvanians transferred 
their confidence in Christian Principles, to a confidence in 
their arms ; — and from that hour to the present they have been 
subject to war. 

Such is the evidence, derived from a national example, of the 
consequences of a pursuit of the Christian policy in relation 
to war. Here are a people who absolutely refused to fight, 
and who incapacitated themselves for resistance by refusing to 
possess arms ; and these were the people whose land, amidst 
surrounding broils and slaughter, was selected as a land of 
security and peace. The only national opportunity which the 

* Clarkson. t Oldmixon, Anno 1708. « X Proud. 

§ Oldmixon. II Clarkson: Life of Perm. 



CHAP. XIX.] ADHERING TO THE MORAL LAW, ETC. 



563 



virtue of the Christian world has afforded us, of ascertaining 
the safety of relying upon God for defence, has determined 
that it is safe. 

If the evidence which we possess do not satisfy us of the 
expediency of confiding in God, what evidence do we ask, 
or what can we receive ? We have his promise that he will 
protect those who abandon their seeming interests in the per- 
formance of his will ; and we have the testimony of those 
who have confided in him, that he has protected them. Can 
the advocate of war produce one single instance in the his- 
tory of man, of a person who had given an unconditional 
obedience to the will of Heaven, and who did not find that 
his conduct was wise as well as virtuous, that it accorded with 
his interests as well as with his duty. We ask the same 
question in relation to the peculiar obligations to irresistance. 
Where is the man who regrets, that, in observance of the 
forbearing duties of Christianity, he consigned his pre%erva- 
tion to the superintendence of God 1 — And the solitary na- 
tional example that is before us, confirms the testimony of 
private life ; for there is sufficient reason for believing, that 
no nation, in modern ages, has possessed so large a portion 
of virtue or of happiness, as Pennsylvania before it had 
seen human blood. I would therefore repeat the question — 
What evidence do we ask or can we receive 1 

This is the point from which we wander : we do not be- 
lieve in the providence of God. When this statement 
is formally made to us, we think, perhaps that it is not true ; 
but our practice is an evidence of its truth; for if we did be- 
lieve, we should also confide in it, and should be willing to 
stake upon it the consequences of our obedience.* We can 
talk with sufficient fluency of " trusting in Providence ;" but 
in the application of it to our conduct in life, we know won- 
derfully little. Who is it that confides in Providence, and 
for what does he trust him ? Does his confidence induce 
him to set aside his own views of interest and safety, and 
simply to obey precepts which appear inexpedient and unsafe 1 
This is the confidence that is of value, and of which we 
know so little. There are many who believe that war is dis- 
allowed by Christianity, and who would rejoice that it were 
for ever abolished ; but there are few who are willing to 
maintain an undaunted and unyielding stand against it. They 

* " The dread of being destroyed by our enemies if we do not go to 
war with them, is a plain and unequivocal proof of our disbelief in the 
superintendence of Divine Providence." — The Lawfulness of Defensive 
War impartially considered. By a Member of the Church of England. 



564 



PROBABLE PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF [ESSAY III. 



can talk of the loveliness of peace, ay, and argue against the 
lawfulness of war ; but when difficulty or suffering would be 
the consequence, they will not refuse to do what they know to 
be unlawful, they will not practice the peacefulness which 
they say they admire. Those who are ready to sustain the 
consequences of undeviating obedience, are the supporters of 
whom Christianity stands in need. She wants men who are 
willing to suffer for her principles. 

The positions, then, which we have endeavoured to estab- 
lish are these — 

h That those considerations which operate as general 
Causes of War, are commonly such as Christianity con- 
demns : 

II. that the Effects of War, are to a very great extent, 
prejudicial to the moral character of a people, and to 
their social and political welfare : 

III. *That the General Character of Christianity is wholly 
incongruous with war, and that its General Duties are 
incompatible with it : 

IV. That some of the express Precepts and Declarations 
of the Christian Scriptures virtually forbid it: 

V. That the Primitive Christians believed that Christ had 
forbidden War : and that some of them suffered death in 
affirmance of this belief : 

VI. That God has declared, in Prophecy, that it is His 
will that war should eventually be eradicated from the 
earth; and that this eradication will be effected by 
Christianity, by the influence of its present Principles : 

VII. That those who have refused to engage in War, in 
consequence of their belief of its inconsistency with 
Christianity, have found that Providence has protected 
them. 

Now, we think that the establishment of any considerable 
number of these positions is sufficient for our argument. 
The establishment of the whole forms a body of Evidence, 
to which I am not able to believe that an enquirer, to whom 
the subject was new, would be able to withhold his assent. 
But since such an enquirer cannot be found, I would invite 
the reader to lay prepossession aside, to suppose himself to 
have now first heard of battles and slaughter, and dispassion- 
ately to examine whether the evidence in favour of Peace be 
not very great, and whether the objections to it bear any pro- 
portion to the evidence itself. But whatever may be the de- 
termination upon this question, surely it is reasonable to try 



CHAP. XIX.] ADHERING TO THE MORAL LAW, ETC. 



565 



the experiment, whether security cannot be maintained with- 
out slaughter. Whatever be the reasons for war, it is certain 
that it produces enormous mischief. Even waiving the obli- 
gations of Christianity, we have to choose between evils that 
are certain and evils that are doubtful ; between the actual 
endurance of a great calamity, and the possibility of a less. 
It certainly cannot be proved, that Peace would not be the 
best policy : and since we know that the present system is 
bad, it were reasonable and wise to try whether the other is 
not better. In reality I can scarcely conceive the possibility 
of a greater evil than that which mankind now endure ; an 
evil, moral and physical, of far wider extent, and far greater 
intensity, than our familiarity with it allows us to suppose. 
If a system of Peace be not productive of less evil than the 
system of war, its consequences must indeed be enormously 
bad ; and that it would produce such consequences, we have 
no warrant for believing, either from reason or from practice 
— either from the principles of the moral government of God, 
or from the experience of mankind. Whenever a people 
shall pursue, steadily and uniformly, the pacific morality of 
the gospel, and shall do this from the pure motive of obedi- 
ence, there is no reason to fear for the consequences : there 
is no reason to fear that they would experience any evils 
such as we now endure, or that they would not find that 
Christianity understands their interests better than themselves ; 
and that the surest, and the only rule of wisdom, of safety, 
and of expediency, is to maintain her spirit in every circum- 
stance of life. 

" There is reason to expect," says Dr. Johnson, " that as 
the world is more enlightened, policy and morality will at last 
be reconciled."* When this enlightened period shall arrive, 
we shall be approaching, and we shall not till then approach, 
that era of purity and of peace, when " violence shall no 
more be heard in our land — wasting nor destruction within 
our borders ;" — that era in which God has promised that 
" they shall not hurt nor destroy in all his holy mountain." 
That a period like this will come, I am not able to doubt ; I 
believe it, because it is not credible that he will always en- 
dure the butchery of man by man ; because he has declared 
that he will not endure it ; and because I think there is a per- 
ceptible approach of that period in which he will say — " it is 
enough."! In this belief the Christian may rejoice ; he may 
rejoice that the number is increasing of those who are asking 
— " Shall the sword devour for ever ?" and of those who ? 
* Falkland's Islands. t 2 Sam. xxiv. 1G 

48 



566 



CONCLUSION. 



[ESSAY III. 



whatever be the opinions or the practice of others, are openly- 
saying, " I am for Peace."* 

It will perhaps be asked, what then are the duties of a 
subject who believes that all war is incompatible with his 
religion, but whose governors engage in a war and demand 
his service ? We answer explicitly, It is his duty, mildly and 
temperately, yet jirmly to refuse to serve. — Let such as these 
remember, that an honourable and an awful duty is laid upon 
them. It is upon their fidelity, so far as human agency is 
concerned, that the Cause of Peace is suspended. Let them 
then be willing to avow their opinions and to defend them. 
Neither let them be contented with words if more than words, 
if suffering also, is required. It is only by the unyielding 
fidelity of virtue that corruption can be extirpated. If you be- 
lieve that Jesus Christ has prohibited slaughter, let not the 
opinions or the commands of a world induce you to join in it. 
By this " steady and determinate pursuit of virtue," the bene- 
diction which attaches to those who hear the sayings of God 
and do them, will rest upon you ; and the time will come when 
even the world will honour you, as contributors to the work 
of Human Reformation. 



CONCLUSION. 

That hope which was intimated at the commencement of 
this volume — that a period of greater moral purity would 
eventually arrive — has sometimes operated as an encourage- 
ment to the writer, in enforcing the obligations of morality to 
an extent which few who have written such books have ven- 
tured to advocate. In exhibiting a standard of rectitude 
such as that which it has been attempted to exhibit here — a 
standard to which not many in the present day are willing to 
conform, and of which many would willingly dispute the 
authority, some encouragement was needed ; and no human 
encouragement could be so efficient as that which consisted in 
the belief, that the principles would progressively obtain more 
and more of the concurrence and adoption of mankind. 

That there are indications of an advancement of the hu- 
man species towards greater purity in principle and in prac- 
tice, cannot, I think, be disputed. There is a manifest ad- 
* Ps. cxx. 7. 



CHAP. XIX.] 



CONCLUSION. 



567 



vancement in intellectual concerns : — Science of almost every 
kind is extending her empire ; — Political Institutions are 
becoming rapidly ameliorated ;* — and Morality and Religion, 
if their progress be less perceptible, are yet advancing with 
an onward pace.f 

Lamentations over the happiness or excellence of other 
times, have generally very little foundation in justice or rea- 
son.;]: In truth they cannot be just, because they are per- 
petual. There has probably never been an age in which 
mankind have not bewailed the good times that were departed, 
and made mournful comparisons of them with their own. If 
these regrets had not been ill-founded, the world must have 
perpetually sunk deeper and deeper in wickedness, and 
retired further and further towards intellectual night. But 
the intellectual sun has been visibly advancing towards its 
noon ; and I believe there never was a period in which, 
speaking collectively of the species, the power of religion 
was greater than it is now : at least there never was a period 
in which greater efforts were made to diffuse the influence of 
religion amongst mankind. Men are to be judged of by their 
fruits ; and why should men thus more vigorously exert 
themselves to make others religious, if the power of religion 
did not possess increased influence upon their own minds ? 
The increase of crime — even if it increased in a progression 
more rapid than that of population, and the state of society 

* " The degree of scientific knowledge which would once have con- 
ferred celebrity and immortality, is now, in this country, attained by 
thousands of obscure individuals." — Fox's Lectures. " To one who con- 
siders coolly of the subject, it will appear that human nature in general, 
really enjoys more liberty at present, in the most arbitrary governments 
of Europe, than it ever did during the most flourishing period of ancient 
times." — Hume. 

t Not that the present state, or the prospects of the world, afford any 
countenance to the speculations — favourite speculations with some men — 
respecting " human perfectibility." In the sense in which this phrase is 
usually employed, I fear there is little hope of the perfection of man ; at 
least there is little hope, if Christianity bo true. Christianity declares 
that man is not perfectible except by the immediate assistance of God ; 
and this immediate assistance the advocates of " human perfectibility " 
are not wont to expect. The question in the sense in which it is ordina- 
rily exhibited, is in reality a question of the truth of Christianity. 

t " This humour of complaining proceeds from the frailty of our na- 
tures ; it being natural for man to complain of the present, and to com- 
mend the times past." — Sir Josiah Child, 1665. This was one hundred 
and fifty years ago. The same frailty appears to have subsisted two or 
three thousands of years before: " Say not thou what is the cause that 
the former days were better than these 1 for thou dost not enquire wisely 
concerning this." — Eccles. vii. 10. 



568 



CONCLUSION. 



[ESSAY III 



which gives rise to crime — is a very imperfect standard of 
judgment. Those offences of which civil laws take cogni- 
zance, form not an hundredth part of the wickedness of the 
world. What multitudes are there of bad men who never 
yet were amenable to the laws ! How extensive may be the 
additional purity without any diminution of legal crimes ! 

And assuredly there is a perceptible advance in the senti- 
ments of good men towards a higher standard of morality. 
The lawfulness is frequently questioned now of actions of 
which, a few ages ago, few or none doubted the rectitude. 
Nor is it to be disputed, that these questions are resulting 
more and more in the conviction, that this higher standard is 
proposed and enforced by the Moral Law of God. Who 
that considers these things will hastily affirm, that doctrines 
in morality which refer to a standard that to him is new, are 
unfounded in this Moral Law ? Who will think it sufficient, 
to say that strange things are brought to his ears 1 Who will 
satisfy himself with the exclamation, these are hard sayings, 
who can hear them ? Strange things must be brought to the 
ears of those who have not been accustomed to hear the 
truth. Hard sayings must be heard by those who have not 
hitherto practised the purity of morality. 

Such considerations, I say, have afforded encouragement in 
the attempt to uphold a standard which the majority of man- 
kind have been little accustomed to contemplate ; — and now 
and in time to come, they will still suffice to encourage, 
although that standard should be, as by many it undoubtedly 
will be, rejected and contemned. 

I am conscious of inadequacy — what if I speak the truth 
and say, I am conscious of unworthiness — thus to attempt to 
advocate the Law of God. Let no man identify the advocate 
with the Cause, nor imagine, when he detects the errors and 
the weaknesses of the one, that the other is therefore errone- 
ous or weak. I apologise for myself : especially I apologise 
for those instances in which the character of the Christian 
may have been merged in that of the exposer of the evils 
of the world. There is a Christian love which is paramount 
to all ; — a love which he only is likely sufficiently to main- 
tain, who remembers that he who exposes an evil and he 
who partakes in it, will soon stand together as suppliants for 
the mercy of God. 

And finally, having written a book which is devoted almost 
exclusively to disquisitions on Morality, I am solicitous lest 
the reader should imagine that I regard the practice of. mo- 
rality as all that God requires of Man. I believe far other ; 



CHAP. XIX.] 



CONCLUSION. 



569 



and am desirous of here expressing the conviction, that 
although it becomes not us to limit the mercy of God, or cu- 
riously to define the conditions on which he will extend that 
mercy — yet that the true and safe foundation of our hope is 
in " the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." 

48* 



INDEX. 



PAGE. 

Advowsons, 473 

Agency, immoral, 206 

Amusements, public, 111,269 

Antiquity, of appealing to, , 532 

Arbitration, 150 

, courts of, i , 395 

Armies, loan of, 528 

Articles of religion, subscription to, 195 

Attributes, the divine, 33 



Ballot, 367 

Bankrupts, 413 

Bequests, charitable, 126 

Bible Society 378 

Bills of exchange, 129 

Bishops, bench of, ?fc : 358 

Books', publication of, 207 

Boxing and wrestling, 273 

Bravery, 213, 223 

British constitution, 353 



Canvassing for votes, 369 

"Catholic Question, The,"..... 320 

Ceremonial institutions, 112 

Ceremonials and rituals, 116 

Children, provision for, £ 145 

Christianity, benevolence of, 51 

Church. — See Religious Establishments, &c 438, 500 

the primitive, 440 

an established,. 441 

alliance of, with the state, 446, 464, 481 

Civil obedience 322 

Classics, the ancient, 239, 257 

Clergy. — See Religious Establishments, Priesthood, the Church, &c. 

Commons, House of, 361 

Confiscations, 135 

Conscience, the nature, dictates, and authority of, 55, 58, 75, 260 

Conversation, religious, 106 

Courage, v . 213, 224 

Courts of Equity, 391, 398 

Martial, evidence in, 192 



572 



INDEX. 



PAGE, 

Creeds and confessions 451 

Creed, the Athanasian, 478 

Crime, as regarded by the Civil and by the Moral Law,., 403 

Crimes, (and vices,) as they are regarded by the Moral Law, and by 

Public Opinion, 212 

Curse, a, 180 

Days, Non-Sanctity of, 107 

Death, Punishment of, 428 

Debts, Perpetual Obligation to Pay, 121 

Minors, a wife's, 128, 129 

Debtor's, Criminal, 410 

Defendants, Unjust, 132 

Devotion, Factitious Semblances of, . 105 

Distraints, 131 

Drama, The, 269 

Duehmg, 77, 216, 275, 409 

Ecclesiastics, Noble, 478 

Education, Intellectual and Moral, 239, 250, 254 

of the People, 265, 377 

Elective Franchise, The,.., 363 

Executions, Public, 430 

Expediency, 24, 93, 307 

Extortion, 132 

Falsehoods, (see also Lies,) 173 

in Legal Documents, 178 

Fame, * 233, 309, 374 

Military, not durable, 226 

Family — " Keeping up the Family," 149 

— i Splendour of,.. 382 

Faults of Great Men, 233 

Felo de Se, Verdict of, 281 

Field Sports, 272 

Forbearance, .. 214, 292 

Formularies, Devotional, . 112 

Fortitude, . 214 

Fraud, and other modes of Diskonesty, 214 

Glory, Military Virtues, &c 218, 519 

Government, Civil, different forms of, .... 333 to 341 

Grammar, English, 245 

Heirs, 124 

Historical Works, 239 

" Holy Alliance, The, 55 .. 309 

Holydays, - Ill 

Houses of Infamy, 142 

Hyperbole, 177 

Improvements on Estates, 140 

Infanticide, 75 

Inns, 210 

I 



INDEX. 



573 



PAGE. 

Insolvency, 120, 410 

Institutions, Ceremonial, 112 

Intestates, 125, 384 

Insurance, 139 

Irony, 176 

Justice, Administration of, 334 

Law of the Land, 80 

of Nature, 85 

of Nations, 95 

of Honour, 99 

Laws, Fixed, 387, 394 

, Useless— Bad, 310, 380, 402 

Legal Injustice, f 153 

Practice, 154 

, Effects of, 159 

, Morality, applicable to, 156 

Legatees and Heirs, 124 

Libels, 414 

Liberty, Civil 310 

, Political, 312 

, Religious, 314, 453 

, Incompatible with Religious Establishments 319 

Libraries, Circulating, 210 

Lies, (see also Falsehoods,) 173 

Lying for Particular purposes, 214 

Litigation, 150 

Lords, House of, 356 

Lotteries, 379 

Masquerades, 271 

Ministerial Union, 350 

Ministers, Christian, legal provisions for, 457, 488 

— , voluntary payment of, 462, 496 

Monarchy, Hereditary and Elective, 335 

Moral Law, The, Variations in, 41 

Every human being possesses, 30, 70, 77 

Spirit of, 47 

Benevolence of, .• — 51, 534 

Nations not exempted from the obligations of, 307, 553 

Effects of adhering t'o, in respect of War, 558 

Moral Legislation, 375 

Moral Obligation, Foundation of, 15 

Moral Sense, Opinions respecting a, 61 

Morality of the Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian Dispensations,... 37 

Supremacy of Christian, 39 

No formal system of, in Scripture, 43 

Influence of individuals upon public notions of, 213 

War reverses the rules of, 523 

Motives of action, 36 

Murder, 435 

and human destruction under other names, 214 



574 



INDEX. 



PAGE. 

Nature, definition of the word, &c, 89 

Newspapers, . 237 

Not at Home, 178 

Oaths, their moral character, 179 

their efficacy as securities for veraeity, 186 

effects of, 193 

moral character, &c, of particular oaths, 195, 202, 331 

of allegiance, 196, 331 

Obligation, moral, foundation of, 15 

Obligations, religious, 103 

identical authority of, moral and religious, 32 

Offences — created offences, 406 

Oratorios, 271 

Pagans, the Will of God communicated to, 30, 70 

Pardons, 394 

Parliaments, annual and septennial, 367 

Patriotism, 214, 225, 502 

not the soldiers motive, 225, 505 

Patronage and Party, , 348, 350 

Peculation, 162 

Penal Animadversion, proper subjects of, 424 

Pennsylvania, colonization of, 561 

Placability, , 214, 534 

Placemen and Pensioners 373 

Pleading in Courts of Justice, 162 

Pluralities, 474 

Political Influence, 342 

Power, Political, the Possession of, 294 

the exercise of, 301, 304 

Prayer, Forms of,. 116 

Press, the, 236, 423 

Priesthood. — See Religious Establishments, the Church, &e. 

averse from reformation, 467 

— — — recoil from works of philanthropy, 481 

Primogeniture,. 380 

Privateers, 134 

Profaneness, 214 

Promises, parole, 170 

extorted, ....171 

Property, Origin of, Right of, 119 

Accumulation of, 383 

Inequality of, 144 

Literary, 143 

Prosecutions, 211 

Providence of God, Unconditional reliance on, 563 

Public Money, Receivers of, 136 

Public Opinion, its influence on the practice of virtue, 188 

errors of, in regard to some questions of morality,... 213 

Punishment, proper ends of, 423 

of Death, 428 



INDEX. 575 

PAGE. 

Religious Establishments, 319, 438, 462 

j of England and Ireland, 463 

r — — incompatible with Religious Liberty, 319 

Rewards, 143 

Resentment, 214, 536 

Right and Wrong, Standard of, 16 

Subordinate standards of, 31 

Rights and Obligations, Private, 103 

Political, 294 

Rights of Self-Defence, 285 

Rituals 116 

Sabbath, temporal, employments on the, 108 

Sabbatical Institutions, 107 

Scepticism, 117 

Schools, Public, 242, 253 

Infant, 268 

Science and Literature, 246 

Scripture, 37 

Self-Defence, Rights of, 285 

Seduction, 161, 403, 408 

Sermon on the Mount, 534 

Settlements, 141 

Shipments, 130 

Slavery, 506 

Slaves, 133 

Subscription to Articles of Religion, 195 

Suffrage, Universal, 365 

Suicide 280 

" Sunday Papers," Ill 

Sympathy, 18 

Taxes, the payment of, 543 

Tests, Religious, 319, 448 

Tithes, 482 

Toleration, 317 

Turf, the, 273 

Verdicts, 394 

Vices, National, 75 

Virtue, 35 

Virtues as they are regarded by the Moral Law, and by Public 

Opinion, . 214 

Military, 218 

Unchastity, 214, 227 

Untruths, (see also Lies,) 158, 177 

Utility, 18, 26, 91 

War, Causes of — Consequences of, 513, 521 

Lawfulness of, 531 

Opinions and example of the early Christians, 548 

Christians first engage in,.. 551 



576 



INDEX. 



PAGE. 

Wars, always aggressive, 556 

of the Jews, 552 

Wealth, accumulation of, 144 

Will of God, 16 

communication of, 18 

■ immediate, 54, 70 

Supreme authority of, 20 

subordinate means of discovering, 80 

Wills, Legatees, and Heirs, 124 

Worship, Religious, (see Religious obligations) 103 



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